Four months after the gala, six months after the board meeting, nine months after a substitute bride had walked down an aisle in Queens in a dress that was not hers, Nathaniel Cole sat at his kitchen island at seven in the morning drinking coffee with cream and sugar because it was Sunday and he had decided years ago that Sunday was for small acts of rebellion against his own habits.
Claire came in from the bedroom, still in his shirt, sketchbook in hand, hair loose in the way she wore it at home and only at home, and crossed to the coffee maker without looking at him, which she also did on Sunday mornings because she was not fully awake until the second cup.
He watched her.
He had gotten very good at watching her, at cataloguing the small particularities of this woman he had been given
