The morning is dim and cool and sodden and very green. Tiny bright maple helicopters have fallen en masse from the trees, and now they coat driveways and stoops and bare-dirt yards. Dormant bean and lettuce seeds are bursting into leaf in the wet garden rows; heavy peony blossoms bow down to mud.

Yesterday afternoon I lit a fire in the stove as the housebound cat flounced from window to window, glowering at the rain. Meanwhile, my son lay under a blanket rereading one of his favorite books from middle school. It was that kind of summer day.

Now I am sitting in my darkened living room as cloud-light filters through the closed windows. Rain is falling again, and I am drinking black coffee from a white cup. Tock-tick, tock-tick, says the clock on the mantle, as if it is suppressing hiccups. Tom turns on the radio, and a newsman's voice bubbles into the quiet, into the ether, into the crannies of my skull. He is trying to tell me what to listen to, I am trying not to listen,  but how can I help it?

Radio Man: "A South Portland man was arrested last night after lighting a fire on his kitchen table, trying to get his roommate to move out. The roommate fled."

Tom: "I guess it worked."

And the air smells like toast.