I would have walked on, except that the woman stirred, and in her sleep she lifted one hand and brushed her hair behind her ear — a small, particular, delicate gesture — and I knew it.

I knew it the way you know your own name.

I had watched that exact movement a thousand times across a thousand dinner tables and pillows six years before, and my whole body went cold and still, because it was Rosalind.

She was thinner than I remembered.

There were deep lines of exhaustion worn into her face that had not been there before, and her clothes were plain and worn, and she looked like a woman who had been carrying something heavy for a very long time.

But it was her.