“You were up three or four times during the night.” He takes another step, and his eyes look sad. “You must’ve gone in there at some point.”

“I did no such thing. I slept like a baby.”

I had, hadn’t I? I don’t remember getting up. Certainly not three or four times. And I feel very distant and disconnected from the rank, dark yellow liquid in the toilet bowl. I would know if it was mine.

I put my hands on my hips. “Just admit it. You forgot to flush.”

Rand shakes his head wearily but gives me what I want. “Sorry, dear.”

I huff and shove a hand into my pocket, rubbing my penny between two fingers. “All right. Now what should I take out for dinner? You want to grill brats?”

Fridays are good days for grilling. We still have a couple of venison cheese brats left over from last season. Those normally don’t last more than a few months before we eat them all—those Milligan Meat folks sure know how to make them—but I saw a package in the bottom of the chest freezer this morning. It was just sitting there. I don’t know how I missed it all year.

“That would be fine,” Rand says.

He returns to the kitchen to read the ag reports, and I dig the brats out of the freezer in the laundry room and set them in the sink to thaw. From the window above the sink, I can see the mountain. I don’t know how many times I’ve studied it as I washed dishes or rinsed vegetables or scrubbed stained clothing in the sink, but it is as familiar and mysterious to me as Rand’s face. I know each crease, each bend. Every rise and fall. I’ve noted every season as it has come and gone. Yet I wonder if I know them at all, these faces.

I feel Rand’s eyes on my back as I leave the kitchen and take the front door out to the porch. The mountain draws me as if it has a message I alone can decipher. My heart thumps as the notion there’s something important I need to remember shortens my breath. What was it? What had we been talking about? Someone had peed in the toilet. Who had been here? Who would do such a thing?

No, it had been Rand. You’d think he’d appreciate a good flush, growing up in a cabin with no indoor plumbing like he did. But he is getting old. We both are. Could it be that we’ve been married for forty-four years? Have we lived that much life together already?

It has been a good life. But there are clouds forming across the valley and moving closer. Dark clouds.