She is not sure whether the feeling is one of horror or excitement when she pulls the cabinet door open and sees, on the topmost shelf, behind a years-old bottle of calamine lotion, a pair of scissors. Her heart flutters as she reaches for them; they are sewing scissors, and they are rusty, but they are scissors. She takes them from the shelf and turns back toward the mirror, blurring her eyes at her reflection. She lifts the knotted lock of hair and holds it between the scissor blades, hesitating before she cuts and blinking her reflection back into clarity. She wonders how long the hair she is about to cut has been with her. Her hair has gotten long; the very ends of it have surely been with her for years, since Maggie was a puppy, since her grandmother was alive. She swallows, wavering for a moment in her resolve. But she has to do this now, she thinks; she made a bargain with herself and took a gamble, and the scissors were there. Now she has no choice but to cut her hair.

She should start feeding Isabelle orchid food, Ruth thinks, tying the spike of an orchid to a stake, the spike now grown too long to support itself, heavy with buds ready to bloom. This is the second time this year that this orchid has flowered, and the one beside it has been in blossom for three months already. Maybe if she added a little fertilizer to Isabelle’s cereal in the morning, Ruth thinks, she’d be growing, too. She finishes tying the spike to the stake and straightens up to look at the bench of orchids before her. She looks at the clock; it is getting late, and they need to get moving if they’re going to make it to the Christmas tree lighting. She curses herself for tending the orchids only at the last minute; she still has several to water, and, she notices, the moth orchid at the far end of the bench badly needs clipping.

Wilson bursts into the kitchen from outside, where he has started to load the car. “Crates ready to go?” he asks.

“They are,” Ruth says, not turning from the orchids to face him, though she can see a reflection of him in the glass of the window above the plants. “You left the door open,” she says.

“Well, I knew I was coming right back out,” Wilson says, “and that I’d have my hands full.”

“Still lets the heat out,” Ruth says, bending over to clip a dried sheath.

“Right,” Wilson says. She hears him lift one of the crates she has packed with food to bring back with them to the city. She sets her clippers down and picks up the watering can, trying to remember at which orchid she left off in her watering in order to tie up that spike. She hears him leave the room and go outside; she listens for the sound of the door closing, but she doesn’t hear it. She shakes her head, feeling the draft around her ankles. She puts the watering can down and goes down the hallway to shut the door herself, but just as she gets there, Wilson is coming inside.