To the Hand That Held

Twenty-one days after the pot came off her counter, the docket book had fifty-six lines in it in Hesper’s own hand, and she had stopped reading them back.

Half past eight. Six. A. Donnacha, breakfast. A. Donnacha, supper. He came at the hour, put the docket down with the pen laid across it, signed when she turned the book, ate at the near end of the counter standing up, and brought the plate back himself. Nine minutes in the morning; eleven in the evening, because the evening dish took longer to cool. She had not timed it on purpose. She had found, somewhere in the second week, that she could have told anybody in the village to the minute.

That was what careful looked like from the inside. It looked like nothing at all, and it took up a great deal of room.

The shop had settled round it. The…