The Dress He Bought Three Days Early

Then she stood up and went out into the corridor and stood with her forehead against the wall.

Because it meant something she had not let herself think.

He had not covered the marks after.

That would have been panic — awful, but human, a man improvising in the worst hours of his life.

He had bought the dress on Wednesday.

He had decided, in advance, what his wife would be wearing in her casket, and he had chosen it for its collar, and he had done that three days before there was any reason on earth for her to need a dress at all.