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“How can you tell?”

“He hasn’t drawn blood.”

Janet opens the bakery bag and breaks off a crumb from a plain scone. Murphy’s eyes open at once.

“Corruption,” I murmur.

“Diplomacy,” Birdie corrects.

Murphy accepts the crumb, rises, stretches every inch of his body across the velvet, and hops down. Janet sits, runs her palm over one carved arm, and smiles in a way that tells me Beatrice will not be spending another night in the bookstore.

While Birdie explains the restoration, my phone vibrates against the counter, and my heart rises so fast that it hurts as I reach it in two steps. The screen shows a promotional text from the pharmacy reminding me that flu shots are available without an appointment.

Disappointment moves through my chest, followed by a deeper unease that has been growing since last night. I clear the notification and open my messages. The last four I sent Connor remain unanswered.

Birdie watches me from beside the chair, and this time she doesn’t pretend otherwise.

By noon, Beatrice has been sold, Janet has left with three books she didn’t intend to buy, and Murphy has claimed the packing paper as compensation for losing his throne. He sprawls across it behind the counter, producing a crinkle whenever his tail moves, while Birdie and I sort a donation box at the long oak table near the stairs.

The table is another of Birdie’s rescues, found beneath a tarp in a barn where mice had treated one drawer as a condominium. Six weeks of work turned it into a dark oak worktable with enough scars left to prove it had lived before us. She named it Ernest, because she names every piece.

My phone lies beside a stack of travel guides. I read the opening page of a romance set in Scotland, place it in the keep pile, and check the time. Twelve fourteen. Connor should be at lunch by now, probably eating the same turkey sandwich he has packed on weekdays since college. He claims routine saves mental energy. I claim mustard five days a week is not a personality.

He usually responds, even when work consumes his day, with a thumbs-up, a call you later, or a photograph of his computer captioned living the dream. We speak nearly every day because sharing the insignificant parts of life has always been natural. He knows when Murphy eats a rubber band and costs me four hundred dollars at the veterinary clinic, and I know when his upstairs neighbor begins another doomed fitness program.

Yesterday, I stayed late to help a customer find a cookbook. Connor called at seven thirty, and I declined the call because I thought I could call him back as soon as she left. Ten minutes later, he didn’t answer.

The memory has been worrying me since breakfast. Why did he call instead of sending a message, and why leave no voicemail when I missed him?

“You’re doing it again,” Birdie remarks.

I look up. “Reading?”

“Staring at your phone as if intimidation will make it confess.” Birdie pushes a lock of auburn hair behind her ear, leaving a faint smudge of dust near her temple. “You haven’t eaten all day.”

“That has nothing to do with Connor,” I argue.

“It has everything to do with the headache you’ll have in an hour, followed by the mood you’ll insist isn’t a mood,” she replies.

“I don’t do that,” I tell her, even though we both know I do.

Birdie turns toward Murphy. “Do we have any copies of Lies Women Tell Themselves?”

Murphy kneads the packing paper without opening his eyes.

“He’s staying out of it,” I tell her.

“He’s management. He knows better than to interfere with a workplace dispute.” She reaches into the bakery bag, removes the remaining scone, and pushes it across Ernest toward me. “Eat.”

I tear off a corner because arguing will take more energy than chewing. Lemon and sugar dissolve on my tongue, but the nervous tension beneath my ribs remains. “I called the bank.”

Birdie’s hand pauses over a stack of paperbacks. “When?”

“Before you arrived. I used the main number because his direct line went to voicemail.”

“What did they tell you?”

“He didn’t come in today.” I brush crumbs from my fingers, then touch the silver heart locket at my throat. The tiny engraved surface warms beneath my thumb. “The receptionist checked his calendar and put me through to his department, but no one had heard from him. They thought he might be sick.”