“He’ll look exactly like himself,” Caroline said.

The tailor paused, his chalk hovering an inch above the dark cloth as he looked from Ellis’s square jaw to Caroline’s calm face.

He didn’t ask another question.

“I’ll have the final fittings ready by Tuesday afternoon,” the tailor said, bowing slightly as he wrote the measurements in his leather ledger.

Caroline paid the fifty percent deposit in cash from her studio account and took the carbon receipt before leading the children back out to the avenue.

At six o’clock that evening, the Seabrook Living office was quiet.