Chapter 9: The Bus
I saw Walter on a bus.
Not metaphor—the city bus, Tuesday, the cane hooked on the seat ahead, the tremor in his hand as he counted coins he had already paid via card, habit from older years. The plated watch was gone. He wore a plain strap. Our eyes met in the reflection of the opposite window. He nodded. I nodded. Neither of us stood to speak.
At my stop I got off and did not look back. The air on the sidewalk tasted like rain and bus exhaust and a life that no longer required a Bentley to feel as if it had begun. I walked the last blocks to work and opened the boutique with the key that had become ordinary metal in my pocket.
Dana asked that night if the sighting had wrecked me. I said it had only confirmed the apartment above the pharmacy, the pension, the completed legacy, the sharp edge. He had been exact on the ballroom floor. I was becoming exact on the shop floor. Parallel lines. No need for them to cross again.
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