the slip was torn from the household pad and wedged into the bottle before sleep, against the chance of forgetting. the milkman, T., a man with reading-glasses for which he is never quite in the right pocket, reads such notes by feel as often as by sight. on this morning he counted: one extra; small, not gold.
the brother came for a week and left on a thursday and the order returned to one. T. carried, in his head, a private census of the street — who was visiting whom, who was alone, who had been alone too long. he never said. postcards were also, in this way, intelligence. a neighbour is anyone whose milk you know.