Virgil was comforting and Natalie let herself be comforted. They'd had their own moments of friction in the apartment they shared in the city, but they were both so tidy and contained and so self-actualized that their roommate experience had been atypical. They knew how the other liked their coffee.

The toast popped and Natalie placed them on a paper towel and spread a thin layer of peanut butter over top. The peanut butter instantly got melty and released its savory aroma. The coffee would be all the more bitter opposite its sweetness.

"Not really," she said. She picked up her breakfast to take into the dining room where they could sit.

Natalie was firmly shored up against inspecting her mother's perspective at all; there was too much history there to try and unpack or explain in a useful way. That, and in Natalie's young life, she'd been so self-centered that she'd never really paid too much attention to her mom's inner workings. She munched on her toast. She looked out the window.

"So, whatchu wanna do today?"

Fin