The first thing Caleb heard in the morning was a pan.
He had not heard a pan in someone else's kitchen since he was eleven years old. The sound of a pan being set down on a burner had a specific weight to it that was not the weight of a pan being set down in his mother's kitchen this week. It was an older weight. It was the sound of being a guest.
He opened his eyes.
The courtyard light was gone. Real light had replaced it. The window was still open. The curtain was still moving once every few seconds in the morning breeze. The apartment smelled like butter.
Elara was at the stove.
She had put on a long shirt that was not the sweater from the night before. Her feet were bare. Her hair was loose. She was cracking eggs into a bowl.
She did not turn around.
