The Manual

# Chapter 1: The Second Notebook on a Saturday Morning

The kitchen window was open.

It had been open since Carmen got up, which was before I did, which was the way Saturday mornings worked. She liked the early air. Said it smelled different from the weekday air, which I had never been able to confirm with any instrument but which I had stopped questioning around year eight of the marriage. That was seventeen years ago.

The cilantro was in a colander in the sink. Carmen was washing it in slow handfuls, running each bunch under the tap and shaking it twice before setting it on the towel she had laid out on the counter. The smell came in layers, the green sharp edge of the cilantro on top, the coffee underneath, and below both of those the warmth of early summer air moving through a screen that needed replacing. I had noted the screen two weeks ago. It was on the list.

Beto was under the table, pressed against my left foot. He was asleep. He slept most of the time now. Thirteen years old, which is old for a dog his size, and he had found the spot under the kitchen table where the morning sun hit the linoleum and claimed it the way a man claims a pension, slowly, then completely. His breathing was even. Every few minutes his back leg twitched against my ankle.

The second notebook was open in front of me.