"How does she—" James began, and then didn't know how to finish it. How does she get here? How does nobody stop her? How do you stand it?
"I teach piano," Petra said. "Out of the house. Saturdays are my heavy day, I've got kids back to back from ten to four, and I have an aide who comes, Mrs. Agarwal, she's wonderful, she's seventy and she's wonderful and she falls asleep in front of the cooking channel. And Bird's quiet. She's always been quiet. She can go out the side door like a cat." She pressed her fingers against her closed eyes. "We put a chime on the door. She took the batteries out. She's got dementia, she's not stupid. She took the batteries out and put them in the drawer with the other batteries, very neatly, in a row."
Iris turned her head. "What are you two whispering about?"
"Your coat, Bird," Petra said instantly. "I was telling James I like your coat."
Iris looked down at her camel coat, the old good one with the brown buttons, and then back up with a faint frown, as if the coat had changed color when she wasn't watching. "I wore the red one," she said, uncertainly. "Didn't I? I wore it, he said wear it. James, I wore the red one." She turned to him, and there was the first edge of something in her voice, the first thin crack in the ice. "You said in the letter. Wear red so I can find you. I'm not good at crowds, you said, I'll be looking at all the faces and I'll panic, just wear red and I'll find you. I'll be under the lady with the owl." Her hand left his knee and went to her own collar and plucked at the plaid scarf. "I wore it."
James did not know what made him do it. Something about the crack in her voice, maybe, the way the floor of that other year was starting to tilt under her. He thought of Ruby at four years old, the first winter after her mother left, waking up screaming because she'd dreamed the apartment had no doors. He had not been able to fix the dream. All he had been able to do was sit on the edge of the bed and tell her, over and over in the same voice, the true things. You're in your bed. I'm right here. There's the door.
"You did wear it," he said. "I found you. Didn't I find you? First thing, top of the stairs. I saw you from all the way across the room."
Iris looked at him. The crack closed. She smiled, slowly, and put her hand back on his knee.
"You did," she said. "You did, at that."
Behind her head, Petra had turned away, and he saw her shoulders go tight under the red coat, and then let go.
"James."