“It happened again,” Ken said. “The koi.” If only he had left for work on time, he thought, he would not be responsible, he would not have met the depths of his own impotent inaction so early in the day.

“Why didn’t you stop him?” she asked, her tone flinty. Ken, fundamentally a soft man, deflated under the accusation. He seemed to be leaking mass. If he stood there all day, by dinnertime he would be a thin man. It was his poor posture, of course, that accounted for this. Ruth knew that.

“If only you wanted a bird sanctuary instead of a koi pond,” he said. “Then everything would be perfect.”