The lottery numbers flashed across the screen at eleven forty-three on a Tuesday night, and my fingers went numb around the ticket.
I had been sitting on the couch in the particular way of someone who has been sitting there since dinner and has not moved not because she is comfortable but because she no longer has the energy to decide what to do next. The television was on because silence in our house had a quality I found harder to sit with than noise. Mark had gone to bed at ten without saying goodnight, which was not unusual, and the dog was asleep against my feet, which was the most uncomplicated relationship in my life.
I checked the numbers the first time the way you check them when you do not expect anything, which is to say quickly and with the low flat attention of habit.