“That’s fine,” Katriina says amiably. She likes Jeff, she wants him to succeed in life. She wishes there were some small bit of wisdom she could pass on to him now, but she can’t come up with anything that doesn’t sound trite. Follow your dreams! Never give up! Always do your best! Jeff deserves better than that. Jeff deserves to be inspired, to be motivated, to be uplifted. “Hey, you know, a famous person once said that success is getting up just one more time than you fall.”

“Okay, good, great,” says Jeff, running his hand through his hair. “So what’s the address again?”

On the way out of the store, Katriina’s phone rings. Shawn. She lets it go to voice mail the first and the second time, the ring tone clanging insistently on the passenger seat as she drives away from the store. She finally answers it the third time, pulling her car over to the side of the expressway and putting it in park.

“Where are you?” he asks before she can even say hello. “Where are the boys?” He sounds impatient, tired. She remembers that he is probably hungover, and so she vows to be gentle with him, to not make things worse.

“They’re at my parents’,” she says. “Are you still at Hanna’s?” She feels mildly pleased at her tone – she sounds as though none of this is a big deal. A transport truck whizzes by, shaking the car. Katriina puts her hand against the door to brace herself. None of this is a big deal, she thinks. It’s just a normal Sunday afternoon.

“No, I’m at the house. Why are they at your parents’? And what the fuck happened to the kitchen?”

Katriina takes a deep breath. She wishes she had just left Shawn a note instead of having to go through all of this. Notes are so much easier, you can say what you have to say all at once without the other person interjecting, and you never have to worry about your tone being misinterpreted. Now, she tries to keep her tone as neutral as possible. “I’m sure we both have a lot of questions,” she says. “I just have to catch up on some work, and then maybe we can talk about all this later?”

“You make it sound like we just need to discuss changes to our retirement plan.”

“I had a rough morning, Shawn, that’s all.”

“You always have a rough morning. Every morning is a rough morning for you.”