He bought three packs every Friday and opened them in the grocery lot with the engine off, because the car was quiet and the house was not. The wrapper first: the give, then the tear, then that specific crinkle. He held the open pack under his nose for a second and a half, the way other men smell a cork.

The cards themselves he riffled once and set aside. He could not have named what he pulled that night, or any night since March; the box in the trunk held four hundred of them, still in order, still unsorted. What he wanted lasted eleven seconds and cost $12.99, and he had never once bought two packs and saved one.