New York City, February 15, 2015

★ Wind shrieked against the building and played its music in the bathroom ductwork. The light was surprisingly non-astringent — dry filth, blown aloft, produced a falsely mellow scattering haze. The three-year-old’s weeklong cold had developed a secondary infection of raging cabin fever, requiring the use of the upper deadbolt to contain it. The boiling pasta water in the kitchen fogged the windows in the children’s bedroom. A gust threw clouds of dust into the air beside the taxi, as it squeaked and rattled through Hell’s Kitchen. The wind in the night sounded like trucks driving over steel plates.