Down below me Lake Union was covered in a wreath of fog, and in the distance only the skyscrapers of downtown pierced through to blue sky, their top stories odd and disembodied. I hadn’t really slept; I’d tried, but the phone message kept playing over and over in my head. Steve had been restless, too. Normally he crashed out like the dead; this time he’d never fully settled after we stopped hugging each other. I felt like shit. I kept the radio on low in the kitchen, catching the news from NPR as I fixed coffee and toast. I could hear Steve moving around in the bathroom and singing something I didn’t know. He came out looking fresh, his hair still damp from the shower, his face pink and smooth from shaving. In the mornings he always had a scrubbed Midwestern look. His eyes were clear, an arresting golden brown with long lashes, and he had a flared, freckled nose and full lips. That was ironic, given that he’d been so eager to ditch the place, leaving Cincinnati the day after he graduated high school.
