Wednesday came in grey and still, the lake like a held breath under a sky that had not decided what to do with itself. Aaron woke to the quiet and lay for a moment, orienting himself to the shape of the week: the foundation visit a week and a half out, the song on Friday, Sophie somewhere up the coast, and a man in Scottsdale who had asked to see him again. He made coffee and carried it to the study, where the work was waiting.
The letter from Accra was on the desk where he had left it, the one Dr. Osei had forwarded, the formal one. He read it through again, slowly this time, the way you read a thing you are about to answer. The translator had written it in careful English — her second language, she said, her third if she counted the one the world did not listen to yet. She asked what the fellowship would require, and whether a story told in a language the world did not listen to could still cross the water.
