Friday came in cooler than the days before it, the first small turn toward autumn, the lake holding the light differently — thinner, paler, as if the water had already begun to give back the summer. Aaron woke to the sound of wind in the trees and lay still, letting the change in the weather settle into him. The filing had gone out. The story was public. And the world had not ended. It had simply become a world in which his father's name was spoken by strangers.
Sophie was still asleep, one arm thrown over the pillow, her breathing slow. He watched her for a moment and then slipped out of bed, careful with the floorboards, and went downstairs.
Two messages waited on his phone.
The first was from Emma, sent sometime after midnight. He had not waited for her reply the night before; he had been too full of the day. Now he read it twice, standing at the kitchen window with the lake grey and quiet beyond the glass.
