On the last Friday before I left, the blue plate broke.
I had been carrying it from the sink to the table with a dishcloth under it. The cloth caught the door handle. Half the plate stayed in my hand; the rest landed at my feet with a sound that brought Rafi up from the shop.
“Are you hurt?”
“Only extravagantly.”
She took the pieces from me and set them on the table. The painted lemon had split down the middle.
“I’ll get the brush,” she said.
“I can do that. You have the invoice for Mrs Pike.”
Rafi stopped at the stairs. “You leave on Tuesday. You can let me sweep your floor on a Friday.”
I let her. The shop downstairs was no longer arranged entirely to suit my hands. She had moved the press toward the window and set a row of sample hems below her own…
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