Next, she went shopping. She purchased a thick queen mattress, a platform frame, linens, pillows, a new comforter in muted golds. She enjoyed spending every dollar. She presented her credit card with no pangs of fear or regret. She bought the deluxe line of linens because she could. All was matching, all was new. The large items were delivered by two men, and she showed them exactly how she wanted everything placed.

The following day, she walked into a gallery and bought a painting called Shimmering Forest by Quebec artist Louis Hughes, carried it home and hung it on the empty hook. The wall came alive with movement and colour.

After that, with neither nostalgia nor remorse, she bagged every suit and tie and boot and shoe and shirt and sweater and jacket that Brigg had ever worn and dispatched them to a shelter for the homeless. Her closet space doubled. She had shelves, baskets and dividers installed.

She dismantled a sectional living-room bookcase, carried it up the stairs herself, piece by piece, and put it back together against one wall of the bedroom. She unpacked the last few book boxes and filled the shelves with her mother’s library and with purchases of her own from the town bookstore.

One surprise was a large box of books from her childhood, thought to have been damaged by water from a leaking pipe. Her mother had salvaged these, packing them separately, probably while Gwen was away at university. The box had not been labelled, so Gwen didn’t know that her earliest books had been saved. She spent three happy hours sitting on the floor of the bedroom, her back to the wall, handling each book, leafing through old memories: Maggie Muggins, Just Mary, Harold and the Purple Crayon, Charlotte’s Web, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Secret Garden, a child’s version of the Aeneid, along with Greek, Celtic and Roman mythology—the influence of her mother. There were early novels by W.O. Mitchell and Gabrielle Roy and—again, gifted by her mother—King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table.

The discovery of her books, the unexpected opportunity for self-indulgence, the renewal of old friendships, provided an afternoon like no other. She decided to take her time finding a good home for each one. Some she would give away. Others she would send to her granddaughters in Texas. Some would be kept for herself; these she wanted to re-explore, and would take her time doing so.

When the book boxes were unpacked, she went out again and shopped for a chaise longue. She had it delivered and hauled upstairs and placed near the bookcase, at an angle from which she could see the new painting. As soon as the delivery men left, she stretched out and began to read the book of stories Allam had brought to her house.

The refurnishing of the bedroom was complete.

ALLAM PHONED AGAIN on a Friday morning. He suggested that they walk together, perhaps go to a coffee house. But Gwen could not.