Chapter 22: Thirty-One Suits

Sasha came on Sunday afternoon with a rented van and a roll of contractor bags.

"Where are they?" she said.

"East closet. All of them."

"Thank you." She cracked her knuckles.

Rafael's suits took eleven trips.

There were thirty-one of them, gray and navy and black, each in a plastic sleeve with his tailor's name on it.

Gabriel carried the last armful down the stairs and stood in the hall with a pile of hangers and the first smile I had seen on him all day.

"Where do they go?" he asked.

"A charity shop on Broadway," Sasha said. "They're having a sale. The sign says dress for success."

"He said a man should dress like what he owned."

"Well, now they're owned by a church." She slammed the van door. "I kept one cuff link. For the tip jar."

By dusk the east closet was empty except for my mother's robe and a row of bare hooks.

I stood in the doorway of the bedroom that had been his.

The bed was still there, with a gray quilt over it.

The door in front of the sitting room stood open its whole width, as I had left it.

"I thought I'd want to burn it," I said. "The bed."

"We can."

"I don't want to. I want it to be a bed." I sat down on the edge of it. "Mine."

Gabriel stood in the doorway for a moment.

"Odette," he said. "Before this. I've been paying rent to a woman who sleeps across the yard from me. It seems wrong."

"It's a strange situation."

"I'll move out, if you want."

I took a folded paper out of my pocket and held it up.

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