4:46 am. There’s no sense in me going back to sleep now. Plus it gives me a few more minutes to get the last bit of recycling out and the potatoes started.

I walk her back to bed and tell her to get some more rest. Maybe I can get another hour alone before she’s up for good.

I gather the tiny peppers from my neighbor and diced them up for the potatoes. Home grown things just smell so different than their store-bought version. They just smell and taste more like themselves.

Twisted stomach. I go through the bookcase and dig out the books that I no longer want. There are only a handful. My eyes scan the shelves…Shakespeare, Munro, Carver, McCarthy, Williams, Austen, Dickens. One day I’ll have a room just for books.

I understand my mother’s point of view. I understand why she wants to just stay out of it for now.

The line at the DMV is pleasantly short.

Fighting fatigue. I dump the laundry on the bed and get to work.

Here comes the rain. The sound of it. The way it beats its way through the screens and streaks the glass.

But now I don’t know how to feel. I just know that there’s more to do.

Time to start the next volume.