Chapter 7: The Coat

"Your coat," I said.

"Navy cashmere. Torn lining. I left it in September." He smiled with his mouth. "You may have noticed."

"I noticed."

I walked to the rack.

Behind me, three chairs creaked in the storeroom doorway.

Three widows had come out to look, the oldest with a pincushion still on her wrist.

The youngest one wasn't with them.

I heard the back door ease shut.

I took the coat off its hanger and laid it on the counter between us.

Clement didn't pick it up.

He opened the front, and slid his hand inside, and felt the zip pocket through the cashmere.

Then he unzipped it, right there, in front of me.

He took out the four pages and turned them over once in his thick fingers.

I kept my face exactly the way my mother taught me to keep it when a bride's mother says the dress makes her look fat.

"Lining's still torn," he said.

"I didn't get to it."

"Nine days with my coat, and you didn't get to it."

"I've had three hundred robes to get to. Your daughter ordered them."

He looked at me for a long moment with those pale blue eyes.

Then he lifted the folded pages to his face and breathed in.

Slowly. The way the wolf had breathed at my hem.

My heart stopped in my chest.

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