I leaned against the back wall and watched her work.
Mrs. Halloran walked past the window at nine-fifteen and looked in without bothering to make it look like she wasn't. She caught my eye through the glass. I lifted my hand. She lifted hers. She kept walking.
The Bishop boy walked past at nine-fifty with his mother. He pressed his nose to the glass and waved at every dog he could see in the waiting room.
At ten-thirty, when Astrid came out of the exam room with Halsey's cat purring in his arms and a folded sheet of post-care instructions in his free hand, I was the last man at the counter.
Halsey nodded at me on his way past.
"Don't burn it."
"I won't."
He left. The bell went off behind him.
Astrid was at the counter, writing something on a chart.
I waited.
She set the pen down.
"Dinner," I said. "My place. Tonight."
She looked up.
"You don't have to."
"I want to."
"Good."
"What time?"
"Seven."
"I'll be there at seven."
"Yeah."
I went out. Hartsdale, on a November morning, had its clean blue sky on. The sun was over the river.
I walked back to my truck, drove home, and slept four hours with Moose at the foot of the bed.
The cast iron was on the stove by three.
The recipe cards were in the tin on the counter where she'd kept them. The one I was looking for was second from the front, dog-eared at the corner, the handwriting careful. I read it twice through, slowly, the way I read instructions before a job.
I cut the onions, seared the chuck, and deglazed with the broth she'd written on the third card to use. I let it go in the oven low, at three-hundred, and walked out of the kitchen because the smell of it was bigger than I was ready for.
It smelled like her. It smelled like every Sunday I'd had in this house. I let myself stand in it for a count, then went upstairs to shower.
She came across Maple at five past seven.
I watched her from the front window. She was in jeans and a cranberry-colored sweater, her hair loose, a bottle in one hand. She didn't see me watching her.
I opened the door.
"Hi."
