She was at the window when the light came.
She had been up for an hour already, the early habit, the body that did not sleep past the dark regardless of what the day required. She had made her coffee and she had come to the sitting room window and she had stood there watching the courtyard go from dark to grey to the first pale gold of morning.
She was not thinking about the archive session.
She was not thinking about anything in particular.
She was just at the window, with her coffee, watching the light come in.
The letter was on the wall behind her.
She did not need to turn to see it. She knew it was there the way she knew the house was there, the specific knowledge of a thing that was so familiar it was part of the background of everywhere she stood in this room.
