It started with breakfast.
Not dramatically. Not in any way that announced itself or demanded acknowledgment. It started the way the most dangerous things always started in Charles's presence, quietly, precisely, with the kind of deliberateness that could be mistaken for accident by anyone who was not paying careful attention.
He began eating later.
That was the first thing I noticed. Charles had maintained the same breakfast schedule since I had known him, seven-fifteen, eggs and coffee and the financial press, conducted with the efficiency of a man for whom the morning meal was a logistical event rather than a pleasure. The schedule had not varied in the months I had been in this house. I had built my own morning routine around it the way you build a routine around a fixed structural element, something load-bearing that you account for rather than question.
The week after my appointment with the physician, he began appearing at seven-forty.
