necklace in the store's online catalog that resembled the one from the photograph. The price made him pause even now, not because he could not pay it, but because he had lived long enough to remember when thirty-eight thousand dollars could have kept eighteen families supplied with groceries and paid their heating bills through winter.
He did not choose it for the price. He chose it because the shape was right, because the stone held the same midnight-blue depth, and because Evelyn had once run her thumb across the original pendant when she was nervous. He hoped the new one would make her smile when she opened the box. He hoped, too, that she would understand it was not an effort to buy back a difficult year, which could never be bought back, but an acknowledgment that he still remembered every day she had stood beside him.
"You've got that expression," Evelyn said, setting the kettle on. "The one you get when you're trying to solve something before anyone asks you to." David straightened, trying to look innocent. "I thought I might go downtown and check on a few things," he told her. "Then I thought we could have supper here tonight, just us."
"We have supper here most nights." She raised an eyebrow. "And you're always checking on things. Are you planning something for tomorrow?" David reached for a piece of toast and deliberately took too long answering, which made her laugh. "David, if you've arranged for a brass band, I will divorce you one day before our fortieth anniversary and ruin your statistics."
"No brass band," he promised. "I know better than that." He stepped over and kissed her forehead, noticing a little smudge of potting soil near her ear. There had been a time when he wanted everyone in a room to know his success; these days, the only things he truly wanted were mornings like this and the chance to make sure Evelyn knew she had not built their lives alone.
When David left the house an hour later, he wore brown trousers, a plain cotton shirt, and the olive canvas jacket he used for weekend errands. The jacket was faded around the cuffs and had a repaired pocket sewn by Evelyn after he caught it on a fence. His shoes were comfortable rather than impressive, and his wallet was the old leather one his son had given him for Father's Day years before, its edges cracked from use. He looked like a man going to the hardware store, not the owner of a portfolio of commercial properties spread across three states.
His driver had the day off because David had insisted on going alone. He drove a modest pickup he kept for garden supplies and weekend projects, parked in a public garage several blocks from the building, and walked the rest of the way. Manhattan moved around him with its usual impatience: delivery carts rattling over sidewalk seams, office workers hurrying past with coffee in paper cups, visitors holding phones up to buildings they did not recognize. Nobody glanced twice at the older man carrying a photograph in his jacket pocket.