They Made Me Sleep in the Garage for Christmas Until the Truth Came Out

rose and fell. Glasses touched. My phone, face-down on the coffee table, lit with a market alert from somewhere across several time zones.

I left it alone.

The empire was there in the morning. It always was. What mattered right now was the particular warmth of a room where the people I loved were present and accounted for, and the quiet satisfaction continue reading …