“We can discuss it in the morning when you are rested,” she said, reaching across the table to touch the back of my hand. “Your health is far more important than Julian’s little accounting errors. You know how your blood pressure rises when you worry about the ledger.”
“It is not a small error,” I said, my pauses growing longer as a strange, heavy dullness settled behind my eyes.
“Drink your soup, Ethan,” she murmured, her nails tapping twice against her water glass. “It will help you sleep. You need your strength for the board meeting.”
“I will,” I said, swallowing a spoonful of the warm broth.
At eight o’clock, the yellow headlights of a truck swept across the front parlor windows, cutting through the darkness of the front yard. I walked out onto the porch, the cold late-autumn air pressing against my face as I stood under the pale porch light.
