Twenty-three times today you patted your left thigh without deciding to. I felt each one: the flat of your palm against the pocket, checking for the little cold weight, the reassurance that we could still get back inside somewhere. You don't know you do this. I've made it a reflex, so you don't have to spend a thought on it. Consider it a gift.
At the door, the whole of you narrows to the fingertips. Thumb and two fingers, sorting by feel alone in the dark of the pocket, and they already know: this one is the fat brass one, this the thin silver, this the ridged plastic head of the car. You have never once looked.
You just trust the hand to find the tooth-and-groove shape that matters, and the hand delivers. We rehearsed that a thousand mornings so you could do it while thinking about something else. You were, tonight. Something about a person who didn't text back. I felt it as a small stone under the breastbone, a breath that forgot to finish.
I kept the hand steady anyway.
The turn of the wrist. That specific quarter-rotation, the give, the click I feel in the bones of the forearm before you consciously hear it. Home. The shoulders you'd carried up around the ears all afternoon came down half an inch. You didn't notice them go up either.
Then you set us on the counter with that bright metal clatter and forgot us until morning.
That's fine. That's the job.
Only, before you sleep: a glass of water. You went the whole day on coffee and one apple, and I've been running the heart on fumes and loyalty. Just a glass.
I'll do the rest.