My coat hung on a hook near the bureau, with my crinoline next to it. I had on only the velvet of my dress over the cream-white of my slip. I hadn’t been this naked in front of a man since the last time I saw him. He’d loosened the lacing on my corset. I could breathe. I sat up, and my hair fell around my shoulders. He’d freed it from its pinned curls. I combed it with my fingers. “Were you planning to take advantage of me?” “If I were, I wouldn’t have left your dress on.” He filled with water two chipped vases that had belonged to his late grandmother. “You wouldn’t have been able to sleep in your coat.” I recognized things from where he had last lived, where I had lived with him for a few months. The railroad pocket watch his grandfather had given him was on the bureau. The lamp gave off
