Midnight Shift

At midnight the woman at the counter hangs her apron on a nail and goes, and the shop is yours. The stove ticks. The pump ticks.

Your phone buzzes on the counter. A link from her. It opens on a cream card grown over with frost. You put your thumb to the glass and hold it there, and the frost melts in a circle under it. When enough is clear, two soft notes ring and the words come through: Barrel draws better with the door cracked. South filters go in at four. Violet only if the woman on the stoop asks. Eat something.

You crack the stove door. You eat something. At four you do the filters.

Near dawn the woman from the stoop is at the window. She does not knock. She holds up one finger.

You take down the violet and break its wax with a thumbnail. Outside the net holds still, and lets go. She stands in the middle of the street with her eyes shut. It is my mother's kitchen, she says. The window is on the wrong side of the sink. That is how it was.