I fumble for my gram’s watch pin, which I’d placed on the nightstand next to my bed. Twenty minutes past six. I push back the covers and dress in the shirtwaist and skirt I’ve worn for the past six days, thankful the garment doesn’t smell sour. The only other dress I own is a plain wool frock suitable only for housework. I braid my hair quickly and wind it into a circle at the back of my head. When I open the door, I see that Martin is also up; his bedroom door is open and there is a peep of light downstairs spilling from the sitting room. Kat’s door is still closed.

I use the water closet and then venture down the staircase. Martin, bent over a writing tablet, sits on a sofa edge. Newspaper pages are strewn over the top of a little table between the sofa and armchair. The nib on the writing pen is making delicate scratching sounds as he works. He is wearing a dark blue suit this morning and his hair is neatly coiffed and his face shaven.

He looks up when I enter the room.

“Hello,” he says, in a quiet but congenial tone.

“Good morning. You are up early.”

“I’ve never been one to sleep past sunrise.”

I notice he already has a cup of coffee. “I’ll have to rise a little earlier, then, so I’ll have a kettle on for you.” I had seen the drip pot on the back burner of the range the evening before. My landlady at the tenement had a drip pot like that. I’ve only ever made coffee once, when she was ill and she asked if I would make a pot for her. She’d told me how to pour the hot water from her kettle onto the ground coffee beans in the top of the pot, and I watched as the filtered beverage dripped down through fine mesh into the pot below. She said I could have a sip for my trouble. I didn’t hate it, but I wondered why anyone would prefer it over tea.

I sit down in the armchair by the fireplace that Martin sat in the night before. He doesn’t ask if I slept well.

I glance down at the tablet and newspaper but can’t read either one upside down. “Are those working papers? For your job?”

“Yes. I’m heading out tomorrow.”

“And how long are you usually gone when you go, if I might ask?”

“It depends,” he says, casually, easily. “Sometimes two days, sometimes three or four. Occasionally a week.”

“I see.”

Several seconds of silence pass between us.

“You take the train when you travel?” I ask.

“I’ve purchased an automobile. I keep it garaged south of the pier when I’m not out on the road. I don’t bring it into the city.”

“An automobile?” I make no effort to cloak my surprise. I know no one who owns an automobile. Not a soul. Will he take me on a ride sometime if I ask him? Isn’t that what people with autos do on lovely Sunday afternoons? I wait for Martin to notice my amazement, but he says nothing.