Turn 3 of 13

Put the left glove back on

The left glove fits now. That is what you tell yourself as you lift it from the table, as you work your fingers into the kid leather and feel it settle without protest. The seam that once strained across your knuckle now lies smooth, and when you flex your hand the leather moves with you, not against you. It feels like wearing someone else's confidence.

You leave the right glove where it sits. The wardrobe watches you with its patient doors, and you understand suddenly that this is how it must be done: one side, then the other, never both at once, never rushing toward whatever waits at the end. Your left hand rises to touch your face, and you feel the cool of the leather against your cheek, the faint scent of cedar and old perfume that clings to everything in this room.

The photograph of Vivienne seems different now. You study the folded hands again, the right-over-left arrangement, and you realise she is wearing gloves in the picture. You had not seen it before, had taken the pale blur at her wrists for shadow or overexposure. But no—there is the faintest line where kid leather meets skin, the same weak-tea colour as the pair on your table. She wore them even for photographs. She wore them until they became her.

Your phone remains silent. Ronan will not call again today; you heard the finality in his last words, the way he retreated from something he had almost said. You sit on the edge of the bed with your gloved hand in your bare one, feeling the difference between them, the way one has begun to belong to this house and the other still belongs to the person you were yesterday. The rose-coloured blouse shifts slightly as you settle, silk whispering against cotton, and you do not move it away.