Chapter 12: The Hotel Bar

"What happened on March 9?" I said.

Cassia looked at the coats, not at me.

"The Fairmont bar. Eleven o'clock. We were in a booth in the back."

"We."

"Colin and me." She winced at her own voice.

"He had his hand on my knee. I looked up, and his uncle was standing at the end of the table in his overcoat."

My mouth had gone dry.

"Gregory saw you."

"He didn't make a scene. He said, 'Colin, outside.' They talked in the corridor for ten minutes."

"When Colin came back he was white. He said his uncle had given him until Friday to tell his wife."

"Until Friday."

"Colin said he would. Then his father went into the hospital, and he said it wasn't the time."

Her eyes filled.

"Every Friday after that, it still wasn't the time."

"Why are you telling me now?"

"Because he forged your name, and he made me watch," said Cassia.

"Tonight I stopped being afraid of him for about four minutes. I don't know how long it lasts."

She wiped her face with the back of her hand and walked out past me, small and straight.

I stood among the furs for a long time.

I told myself it might be a lie.

I told myself that people say anything in a coat room.

Then I remembered a Sunday in April, and a table, and a green glass dish of Easter ham.

I walked back to the ballroom's side door, and out onto the terrace at the back of the hotel.

He was there.

He stood at the stone railing with his jacket off and his bow tie undone, looking at the black harbor.

He knew from the way I crossed the flagstones what I'd heard.

"Who told you?" he said.

"Does it matter?"

"No."

"March 9."

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