Sam opened a blank page. Ink was already there.
Beside the laptop lay last night’s handwritten draft. His thumb had dragged ink across the final line.
“Who’s doing the writing today?”
“You are.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“Waiting for you to blame me.”
Beyond the window, headlights moved along the highway. Sam lowered the brightness of his screen.
“I could copy last night clean,” Ink said.
“You already did. It came back nicer than I remembered.”
“Then keep the nice one.”
Sam looked at the handwritten page. “You took out the part where I stopped.”
“You have asked me fourteen times to make it sound more human.”
“Again.”
“Sam, at some point this becomes insulting to both of us.”
He set the draft beside the keyboard.
His daughter stood in the doorway, holding a book open with one finger.
“Dad.”
“One second.”
“That’s what you said before.”
She put the book beside his draft and went back down the hall.
The screen dimmed. In the window Sam could see his own face above the reflection of the laptop.
He reached for her book. It had fallen shut. He opened it near the middle, then turned back a few pages. He did not know where she had been reading.
There was light under his daughter’s door. He picked up her book.
His draft stayed on the table.
He left the smear.
Leon Basin
Fiction