“Tell me about your husband,” she said.

“My husband dresses in morph suits. He walks around the neighborhood, stealing lunch meat out of sandwiches.”

She drew a deep breath, seemingly unfazed, and lit a cigarette. “You know Florence passed?”

I took her cigarette from her fingers.

“They called this morning,” she said. “I guess they didn’t know you would mind. I mean, old people. It’s just the way that place goes.”

I continued to smear her face, smoking. 

“I saw you feeding her cookies.” She looked at me; her wide, Mediterranean eyes glistened. “I’ve been doing that too. Since forever.”

She took my hands between hers. They were solid, rubber slabs. Hard fat, sticky centers; they kept me warm and still.

Later, an aunt drove us to city hall. The husband showed up at the end of our fifteen minute slot. He looked like a fourteen-year-old orphan, all jeans and sweatshirt.

When I got home, I found my son, bulbous as a narwhale, planted at the hot-air vent, his fingers clutching its ridiculous Victorian curvature. He was sucking a lemon wedge dipped in sugar, drunk on this entanglement of sweet and sour. He raised a finger toward my face. 

I thought to ask where his father was, but I already knew. “Lemon wedges,” I said, “aren’t they good?”

He smiled at me; several of his front teeth were gone.

“May I?” I lifted the last one from a teacup. For a few minutes, I leaned against the wall, sucking the lemon wedge as I gazed at him. He’d anchored himself to the hot-air vent, as if he’d float away.

I wanted to tell him how I’d concealed my co-worker’s scar only to catch the yellow courtroom light accentuating its ticking. I wanted to tell him that I knew why he gripped the vent as he pulled the sweetness from the lemon.

“That’s good use of a teacup,” I said.