I held my breath, waiting to see if he would ask for the name on the receipt.
“It was just some gifts for the kids,” I said, looking down at my hands.
“Right,” he said, turning toward the kitchen. “Just make sure we aren’t buying things we can’t afford to show off.”
The paper receipt felt hot against my skin under the fabric of my skirt. I waited until I heard the kitchen faucet run before I pulled the receipt out and tucked it deep inside my old leather purse.
In the afternoon, I went out to the front porch to sweep the dried oak leaves off the steps. The air was cool, but the sun was bright enough to make me squint as I worked the broom into the corners.
Mrs. Gable, my neighbor from across the gravel driveway, was leaning against her mailbox, watching the yellow school bus pass. She was sixty-eight, with silver hair kept tight in a bun, and she always wore a blue cardigan even in the early autumn heat.
“You’re turning fifty next week, aren’t you, Elena?” she called out, walking over to the edge of my lawn.
“On the twelfth,” I said, resting my hands on top of the broom handle.
“Are the kids taking you somewhere nice?”
“They booked a table at The Gilded Lantern,” I said. “Jake insisted on it.”
She stopped walking and looked toward our front door.
“That’s a lovely place,” she said, her voice dropping a little. “You should let them spoil you. You’ve spent twenty-five years putting everyone else first.”
“I’m a little nervous about it, to be honest,” I said, looking down at the wooden porch steps.
“Nervous about a dinner?” she asked.
“I don’t want to make a fuss,” I said, my voice dropping. “Damon says it’s an expensive place, and I don’t want to look out of place.”
Mrs. Gable looked at me for a long moment, her hand resting on the wooden railing of my porch.
“A woman should shine on her birthday, Elena,” she said softly. “Don’t let anyone make you feel small in your own skin.”
She patted my arm before turning to walk back to her house, leaving her words hanging in the cool afternoon air.
I went back inside the quiet house and walked up the stairs to our bedroom.
The green dress was still there, tucked away where Damon would not see it when he looked for his clean socks.
I opened the wardrobe door just a crack, looking at the emerald fabric shining in the dim light of the closet.
Every little comment he had made over the last week seemed to gather in the room, heavy and cold.
The jokes about the lipstick, the remarks about the pearls, the warning about the credit card.
They were just his usual jokes, of course, but counting them up made my hands feel cold.
I reached out and pushed the dress further into the corner, behind my winter coats where the shadow was deepest.
Then I shut the wardrobe door, leaving the green dress hidden in the dark.
The steam from the iron smelled like starch and hot metal. I ran the silver plate of the iron down the sleeve of Damon’s white button-down shirt, pressing the crease flat.
Damon sat at the kitchen table, his finger tracing the edge of a printed menu he had pulled up on his laptop. He adjusted his collar, though he was only wearing his gray undershirt.
