“Carrie?” he whispered, his low voice calm and level in the quiet room.
“Yes?” I said, keeping my own voice flat.
“Did you get those bills paid today?”
“I did,” I said, thinking of the eighty-nine dollars that had disappeared from our joint account.
“Good,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck with one slow hand. “We need to keep on top of things.”
He did not move again, but I knew he was awake, waiting for the hours to slip toward midnight.
I lay perfectly still, my eyes wide in the darkness, waiting for the first sound of his feet hitting the floorboards.
I tucked the black lens deep into the synthetic fur, leaving only a tiny glass eye staring out at my daughter’s bed.
I stepped back, smoothing the brown plush arm of the bear, making sure the tiny glass eye was completely unobstructed. Downstairs, the oven timer buzzed, its sharp ring cutting through the quiet of the hallway. I wiped my palms on my jeans and walked down to the kitchen, where the steam from the roasted chicken had fogged the lower pane of the window.
Emma was sitting at the wooden table, her small fingers clutching a green crayon as she drew lopsided circles on a piece of construction paper. Evan was standing by the stove, dishing up green beans with a silver serving spoon, his movements slow and deliberate.
