I kept the restaurant menus in my second drawer but never used them. They seemed to belong to another life: a life of power lunches and event, a life in the movies, or thirty years in the past, before I’d turned into myself. Downtown lunches were expensive, even just a cup of deli soup, so I started packing my own. I didn’t see the point in spending so much money just to eat alone. I packed mine in brown paper bags like a schoolkid: yogurts and apples; sandwiches with fatty cuts of ham, like Lucy made, and lots of mayonnaise.

There was a homeless woman who sat with me on the benches. It was hard to say why it felt like she was sitting with me because she never sat particularly close. We never spoke. It had something to do with the way she carried herself, very stiff and proper, and sent respectful glances in my direction. She wore an old gray suit, a man’s suit, with a black stain all over the chest pocket like her heart had leaked dark blood. Her sleeves were worn through in patches and you could see her elbows. She was a black woman but her hair was white, mostly covered by a broad straw hat. She didn’t ask for money or say anything, just sat down as soon as I did and left when I got up, nodding slightly before she walked away.

After a few days I asked if there was something in particular she liked about the bench. She tipped her hat with one finger. “Just the company.”

The next day I brought an extra sweatshirt tucked into my purse, wrapped around my lunch bag. Before we got up to leave, I tapped her on the shoulder. “I could sew the elbows of your jacket. I’d bring it back tomorrow.”

“I’m much obliged,” she said. “But I’d be a little chilly without it.”

“We could trade.” I pulled out the sweatshirt. My Heart’s Locked Up in Lovelock. More than it reminded me of Fiona, it reminded me of her leaving.

The woman shook her head. “I can’t.”

“I’m not half bad at this stuff,” I said. “Patching up and all that.”

She gave me her jacket in the end. She took the sweatshirt, clutching it stiffly like a stranger’s baby. Before she left, she told me her name was Toledo. She’d named herself, she said. Her mouth sparkled with gold fillings when she spoke.

I used red corduroy patches because I didn’t have anything else around. Now she’d look like a professor. The jacket stank like rotten lettuce. It didn’t smell like a woman. I washed it in my sink with a few squirts of dish soap. This was how I’d done laundry when I didn’t have much cash.