“When I was small.
I used to ask Mum what you looked like.”
“What did she tell you?” I asked.
Claire almost smiled.
It didn’t quite make it.
“She said you had kind eyes.”
I didn’t trust myself to speak for a moment.
“I have photographs,” Anna said quietly.
“From when we were young.
I kept them.
I can get them if — “
“Not yet,” Claire said.
She pressed both hands flat on the table — the same gesture I had made twenty minutes earlier without knowing it.
“I need a minute.”
“Take all the time you need,” I said.
She nodded.
She stared at the table.
Outside, a cloud shifted and the afternoon light came through the kitchen window and fell across the three of us.
Then Claire looked up.
“Did you know my wife?” I said.
