Paula came flying out of her bedroom and dragged Kate back down the hallway. The door clicked shut and he heard no Spanish, just peals of laughter for the next half hour.

He’d planned to do some paperwork before starting dinner, but when he sat down at his desk, he pulled out Kate’s application instead: 2/14/68. Just as he’d remembered. She was well into her thirties, plenty old enough to be Paula’s mother. So what was she doing in there, giggling like a seventh grader? Her birthday was coming up. On Valentine’s Day, no less. Maybe she’d quit before then. She might expect a gift, or he might want to give her a little something and she’d take it the wrong way. Or Lincoln would.

They emerged from Paula’s bedroom flushed and watery-eyed. He quickly slipped the application back in its file.

“Entonces, nos vemos el sábado, ¿no?” Kate said.

“¿Sábado? Sí.”

They passed his desk without noticing him.

“Bueno. Hasta luego, Paula.” She added an extra half syllable to his daughter’s name.

“Adiós, Caterina.”

They kissed on both cheeks, as if in Paris.

He waved from his chair, not wanting to break the flow with clunky English.

When she came to their house the next Tuesday, she wrote down on a slip of paper (a bank receipt, he saw later, that stated she had $57.37 in her account) from her coat pocket her new phone number. She said she was moving closer to the store.

“With Lincoln?” Paula asked, and Mitchell for once was grateful for her prying.

“No,” Kate said, as if she might say more, then didn’t.

“Why not? He has such perfect teeth.”

Paula read the question on Mitchell’s face and said, “She showed me pictures of him.”

Long after she left, he got up from his reading to start supper and realized the slip of paper was still crushed in his hand.