He fixed the bologna sandwiches in the kitchen each morning while she was sleeping, quiet in the kitchen with only the radio playing, two pieces of bread and mayonnaise, wrap it in waxed paper, put it in the sack. She hardly ever went anywhere. Her day began when his ended. She was articulate to the point of wittiness once she’d had her first drink, but he couldn’t sit up with her all night watching network television.

He ate the sandwich in the break room with one of those mixed soft drinks that came from machines that drop first the cup and then some ice and then several squirts of different liquids and finally fizz up the drink and click to signal when they are ready. He watched checkers games sometimes or just talked with other people about work or how the fish were biting or who had died, and he kept his eye on the phone booth and waited until almost everybody had headed back to punch in and then dashed to the booth to call her and speak to her for just a few moments. Sometimes she was up. Sometimes she wasn’t. He needed to hear her voice always. Sometimes he did. But sometimes he didn’t.