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It became the top of a hat.

I added a brim. Then a second hat beside it, smaller and slightly crooked.

Josie looked over. “Petey?”

“Possibly.”

“Needs a pencil.”

I drew one behind the ear.

The head below the hat became a cow’s head because people were difficult and cows had already proven structurally forgiving. The cow stood behind a feed-store counter. I gave him four legs, all the same length this time, which felt like unnecessary adherence to precedent, so I added a fifth.

Josie leaned closer. “What’s that one for?”

“Administrative support.”

She nodded solemnly and drew a tiny clipboard under the extra hoof.

Her own page had become a horse. Not a couch. A mare with soft eyes and a dark mane, standing in grass that reached her knees. Josie knew how horses occupied their bodies. Even with a felt-tip pen, she gave the mare weight through the shoulder and quiet in the lowered head.

I watched her draw the second ear.

“You’re good.”

She immediately looked down. “It’s just doodling.”

“You’re good at doodling.”

“That doesn’t count.”

“Why?”

She considered it.

Then she gave the mare a blue tail.

“Now it doesn’t.”

I laughed again.

We worked.

Except it was not work.

That distinction kept surprising me.

We used stickers. We gave Petey Cow three gold stars, one on the clipboard and two on his hat. Josie drew a fence behind the blue-tailed mare, then colored outside it on purpose. I added a mountain with a face. She gave the sun cowboy boots. We disagreed over whether the sun needed spurs, resolved the issue by drawing one spur and one roller skate, and ate star-shaped cheese without getting up from the floor.

At some point, Butterbean acquired a paper crown.

At some point, my smartwatch vibrated.

I looked down.

A message notification.

My body performed its old response before my mind reached it. Heartbeat. Focus. The beginning of a list. A possible client inquiry, an insurance update, a banking alert, a problem seeking the nearest available woman with a functioning phone.