Eli knew why the entry mattered before he understood that he could not remember it.
The ledger lay open beneath the morning lamp. Its account described an early agreement with Tessa, a moment when she had trusted him enough to accept a promise that cost him something, and he had trusted her judgment enough to give the promise. The sequence was legible. The reasons followed one another. He could explain what each had risked.
He could not enter the room the words described.
There was no faint image waiting beneath concentration. No remembered change in her face. No personal feeling that belonged to the event rather than to his present knowledge that it ought to be precious. He read it a fourth time, hoping repetition would do what it had not done for the neighbor’s name or the phrase lost at the dam.
It remained an account in his handwriting.
Tessa came in carrying two cups and stopped when she saw the open page.
“Do you want company?”
“Yes.”
