Not because of the mystery of the word “salamander,” but because of the blank spaces between hummingbird and salamander. The more I stared at the piece of paper, the more those lines of.…. . ate at me. Something watched me from those coordinates, and if something watched me, I was already involved.

Code or symbol, distress signal or warning?

[14]

The week that followed seemed like another country. Perhaps because the country I had lived in didn’t really exist. Or not the way any of us thought it did.

Things like family dinners. The repetitions that spoke to how much we loved routine.

Pork chops and asparagus and small golden potatoes with a crisp skin soaked in butter. I had seconds, and then thirds.

“Long day?” he asked.

“Yes, and I forgot lunch.”

That came as such a surprise, he leaned back in his chair. Even my daughter looked up from her devices.

“Distracted?”

“Yes.”

A bird in my locker at the gym. Tiny lie, growing larger and larger. Tiny Larry, growing larger and larger as he feasted on fallout from our encounter.

“Yeah? Why?” My husband was a bear, but when it came to prying he was more like a burrowing badger. He had his reasons.

The box pulsed and glowed and shook, wanting so much to open and fly away into words.

“She has difficult decisions to make,” my daughter said, saving me.

“What do you mean?” I asked, too sharp.

My daughter shrugged. “You always do.”

Is that how it seemed to her? I laughed then, but now it makes me sad. The look she gave me. Did she know something I didn’t?

My husband nodded, as if she had explained my day to him and there was nothing I could add. Eat more asparagus, cut into the crisp skin of a potato. Take another sip of Malbec.

I made a note to tell my daughter more about my job, not hold back the way she did about school. Let her know things—like how few women did this kind of work when I entered the job market. How few worked in management at my job. I truly meant to.

I asked my husband about his day because I didn’t want to risk talking about mine. He went off on a story about a stubborn potential client he’d shown six perfect homes to, mugging for our daughter so she’d laugh, and I was safe again.

I made it through sitting in the living room playing card games and our daughter going upstairs for a shower and then to bed. Through more rituals with the familiar beast I loved, this bear I could hug, cuddle with, bite the ear of.

The presents under the tree belonged to the future, and still do.

[15]

Somewhere along the way, for reasons I misremember, I had bought a go-bag. Maybe a paranoid moment at work. Or at home. Left it stored in my gym locker. A thick lump that lay in the bottom compartment and moldered there. Didn’t think about it much. But I’d bothered to buy it pre-made. With a credit card my husband didn’t notice because I’d never told him about it.