In the living room, Daniel sat beside Iris on the sofa as if he had brought his entire concentration with him.
She could feel it in the stillness of his hand on her knee. His mouth had been less still in the kitchen. She was trying not to smile about that, and failing.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“That usually means something.”
“I was thinking this is the part where someone pretends to be interested in the books.”
He glanced toward the bookcase. “Would it help?”
“No.”
“Good.”
He turned back and kissed her. She rested her hand against the back of his neck, felt the short hair beneath her fingers and the warm, living weight of him near her. There was nothing theoretical about wanting now.
She drew back enough to see his face.
“I’d like you to stay.”
“Yes,” he said.
She laughed softly. “That was quick.”
“I’ve been trying to make it less obvious.”
“You’ve failed.”
“Good.”
Upstairs, she switched on the bedside lamp. The bedroom looked suddenly unfamiliar with another person standing in it. Her own cardigan lay on the chair; an unopened packet of cotton wool sat beside the mirror. Nothing had arranged itself for romance.
Daniel took her hand.
The wedding ring touched his fingers. Iris looked down at it. She had worn it so long that taking it off seemed a more deliberate act than leaving it on, though she knew that was a trick of habit.
She slid it from her finger and set it in the little dish beside the mirror.
Daniel didn’t speak. She was grateful for that.
Then she turned toward him, and he opened his arms.
Later, when the house had gone quiet around them, he reached for her in the dark. She went willingly, the remaining distance between them no longer something either of them wanted to keep.
In the morning, he was in her kitchen wearing yesterday’s shirt and looking apologetically at the coffee machine.
“I didn’t want to wake you.”
“You haven’t.”
She had woken to the unfamiliar warmth of someone else’s sleep on the pillow and lain there for two minutes with her eyes open, discovering that she was happy before she began to think.
Now she stood in the doorway in a dressing gown she’d bought for herself, not an occasion. Her hair was probably absurd. Daniel looked at her as if this were another version of the green dress.
“You’re smiling,” he said.
“I know.”
He left the coffee machine, crossed the kitchen and kissed her. Morning breath and all. It was unexpectedly better than any careful entrance she could have made.
“Coffee?” she asked when he let her go.
“Please. I got as far as putting water in it.”
“An excellent foundation.”
She showed him which button to press. He insisted on making toast, then burned the first two slices while they were talking.
“It’s not the same on both sides,” he said, looking into the toaster.
“It needs turning halfway through.”
“You have a toaster requiring supervision?”
“Only on the right.”
He looked at her. She laughed and took out two more slices.
They ate at the table in the morning light. A neighbor’s cat crossed the garden with the proprietorial air of someone checking on staff. Daniel watched it jump the low wall.
“Yours?”
“No. It likes to confirm.”
He smiled, then glanced at the clock. They had to be at the store in forty minutes. She felt a small disappointment that ordinary time had already begun making claims.
“I should go home and change,” he said.
“You’ll never get there and back.”
“I brought a clean shirt. In the car.”
She looked at him over her cup.
He put his toast down. “I travel for work. There’s usually a bag.”
“Of course.”
“I didn’t bring it as a prediction.”
“Daniel.”
“Yes?”
“I would have been flattered by the prediction.”
He laughed, then shook his head at himself. She liked the slight embarrassment. It made him less remote from the man she had touched in the dark.
While he went to the car, she rinsed the cups and stood for a moment at the sink. There were two of them, used. It would have been easy to give that more meaning than a morning required.
She wanted him back. That was enough meaning to begin with.
At work, they separated by the side entrance, Daniel going upstairs to the conference room while she opened the registers. Neither behaved as if they had done something shameful. Neither announced it across homewares.
Priya looked at her once and smiled. Iris chose to take it as a comment on the weather.
The fortnight review took twenty-five minutes.
Sales were above the conservative projection, though not spectacularly so. The winter coats were doing well. The small appliances were moving more slowly, and the linens would need another reduction to stay on target. Returns were within the amount they’d reserved. Nobody proposed ending the sale early.
Joan thanked Iris. Martin asked whether staffing could be reduced the following week. Iris explained why the customer collections and stock checks would make that premature, and Daniel backed the figures without speaking for her.
Afterward, he shut his laptop.
“Four weeks,” he said.
“Four weeks.”
She looked through the window at the roof of the church. Two weeks ago she had been afraid of ten days. Now she had a room she could almost afford, a husband arranging valuations, a man she wanted to see again and four weeks of paid work separating her from a life she could not yet picture clearly.
“Are you all right?” Daniel asked.
“Yes. Just trying to decide which bit of all right.”
He came around the table, stopped close enough to touch her and didn’t. The door was open.
“Dinner Sunday?”
“At your place?”
“I’d like that.”
“I could see the mysterious chicken dish.”
“I’ve built it up too much.”
“Almost certainly.”
He smiled and picked up his case.
At midday Winnie found Iris counting empty hangers.
“You look rested,” she said.
“I’m counting.”
“So am I.”
Iris looked up. Winnie was smiling with an infuriating absence of innocence.
“Do you have a question?”
“No. You’ll tell me if you want to.”
That made it impossible not to.
“We’re seeing each other.”
Winnie’s expression softened.
“Good.”
“It’s new.”
“I assumed I hadn’t missed a silver anniversary.”
Iris laughed, then felt her face warm. “I don’t want everyone discussing it.”
“Then don’t give them a speech.”
“He isn’t my employer.”
“I know.”
“And the sale proposal was approved before—”
“Iris.”
She stopped.
“Are you enjoying yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Then perhaps let that be a complete answer for a minute.”
Iris stood with the hangers against her hip. Somewhere downstairs a child laughed, sharp and delighted, then was shushed by a parent with less enthusiasm.
“Yes,” she said again, more quietly.
That afternoon she sold a navy coat to a woman attending an interview, found a replacement plug for a display lamp, and told a man he could not take the demonstration vacuum home because he had bought its box. Work occupied the hours with its usual unembarrassed demands.
At four, Beth called during a break.
“I found someone who wants the button samples,” Iris said.
“Me?”
“You. Joan’s agreed to donate them. You’ll need a formal acknowledgment for the estate.”
“I can do that.”
They discussed collection dates, then Beth asked how dinner Thursday had gone.
“Very well.”
“With the appraiser?”
“With everyone from the store.”
“And the appraiser.”
Iris smiled at the empty office. “And Daniel.”
A small pause.
“Daniel,” Beth repeated.
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“You don’t have to sound like you’re checking a bridge before I walk over it.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Good.”
“I’m trying not to.”
Iris softened. “It’s early. I like him. That’s all I know.”
“Do you want to know more?”
“Yes.”
“Then I hope you get to.”
After they hung up, Iris sat very still. Her daughter had given her nothing more complicated than a wish, and it had reached a place no advice could have touched.
At closing, she checked Arthur’s suit again. Jacket and trousers together. Button secure. Her handwriting on a new collection tag, Philip’s name spelled correctly. She put it on the rail nearest the cupboard door, where it could not be overlooked.
Then she went home and changed the sheets.
She tucked in the clean sheet, leaving room on the other side for the prospect of another night.
In the little dish beside the mirror, her wedding ring lay beneath an ordinary hairpin.
She took it downstairs, put it in the bracelet box and closed the lid.