On cue, the radio shifted from Coltrane to something that sounded suspiciously cheerful. I frowned at it. It had never done that before.
I should have asked her to leave. I should have gone back to my mourning jewelry and my silence and my carefully constructed isolation.
Instead, I heard myself say: "Tea's in the back. You look like you need it."
Sarah would have laughed at me.Two years of refusing to let anyone in, and all it takes is one desperate woman with a possessed phone and a missing sock?
But Sarah wasn't here to laugh. And the woman—Diane, she said her name was Diane—looked at me with such raw gratitude when I handed her a cup of tea that something cracked in my chest.
Something I'd thought was permanently sealed.
She came backthe next day. And the next. And the next.
I told myself it was just because the shop made her phone stop buzzing. Told myself she was using me—using the space, using the quiet, using whatever strange power had seeped into these walls over the years.
But she asked questions. Real questions. About the objects, about the shop, about San Francisco. About Sarah.
No one asked about Sarah anymore. They either avoided the topic entirely or treated her like a tragedy—something to be pitied, mourned, moved on from. Diane asked about her like she was a person. Like she mattered.
And she laughed at my jokes. Actual laughter, not polite chuckles. When I told her about Victorian mourning hairjewelry, she dropped a brooch like it had bitten her and shouted "THERE'S A DEAD PERSON'S HAIR IN THIS?" loud enough to startle the music box into playing.
"It's keratin," I said. "It's no more 'remains' than your fingernail clippings."
"I'm not wearing my fingernail clippings as jewelry!"
"More's the pity. Very on-trend for the 1870s."
She stared at me. I stared back, completely straight-faced.
And then she laughed—a real laugh, surprised out of her. I'd forgotten what it felt like to make someone laugh. To be something other than the sad widower everyone tiptoed around.
"You're messing with me," she said.
"Only slightly. The hair is real. The trend analysis is accurate. The suggestion that you should start a fingernail jewelry line is my own contribution."
"I hate you."
"No, you don't."
She didn't. That was becoming a problem.
For both of us.
THE RADIO BETRAYS ME
The morning she first came to the shop, the radio played jazz. Normal. Expected.
The next morning, it played jazz with what I can only describe as enthusiasm. Still acceptable.
By day three, it had started incorporating what I suspected were love songs disguised as jazz standards. I chose not to examine this too closely.
Then came the day the app matched us.
I was in the shop, minding my own business, when my laptop—which I use exclusively for inventory and strongly-worded emails to suppliers—suddenly displayed her face. Diane's face. On what was clearly a dating app I had never installed.
Your Perfect Match!the screen announced.Diane Martinez, 47, Fairhaven. She likes: Wine, cats, and avoiding commitment!
"What," I said flatly.
