All the same, she followed him to the second floor, and as it turned out Dr. Girard wasn’t after anything inappropriate. He simply went to the closet and opened the door, then turned to Ettie and motioned her forward. There were his wife Sarah’s clothes, neatly displayed on wooden hangers. She had been gone for several years, lost to cancer. The fact that her disease had been incurable was a personal affront. He was meant to cure, and could do nothing at all. Girard often imagined that Sarah was in the kitchen, making coffee or reading a book at the table as sunlight came through the window, waiting for him at the end of the day. Darling, she would say when he walked in, I’ve missed you.

He could not save her, he could only watch her die, and so he rarely opened the closet where her clothes were still stored, for he was reminded of all he was incapable of accomplishing each time he saw anything that had belonged to her. But since Ettie’s arrival he had been thinking what a waste it was to have Sarah’s belongings locked away, when Ettie had nothing. He stood back, so that Ettie could get a good look. She had never seen more beautiful clothing. There were linen summer dresses and silk evening clothes, along with piles of sweaters in jeweled colors. At the rear of the closet there was a black coat with a fur collar.

“My wife liked beautiful things,” Girard told Ettie. “She worked for a designer in Paris long ago. Try some of it on,” he suggested. “It’s not doing anyone any good in a closet.”

Ettie reached for a simple shift. The soft fabric rustled in her hand.

“No,” the doctor said. “Take something that you find to be truly beautiful.”

So she chose a pale blue taffeta dress the color of an afternoon sky that Madame Girard had worn in Paris to an engagement party for one of the doctor’s cousins. It was chic and fashionable without being too much. The doctor left the room so Ettie could try it on. She stared at herself in the full-length mirror. She was no longer the rabbi’s daughter, but even in this glorious dress she was still the sister of a girl who had died in a yellow field. That was the one true part of her that remained. Nothing could hide that.

She went to the hallway, where the doctor was waiting, nervous again. He was slightly taken aback by her sudden intense beauty, but he smiled when she spun around. He remembered that night in Paris with Sarah. How cold it had been as they walked to the party, how he’d kept his arm under her coat so that he could feel her heart beating.

“It’s perfect,” Ettie said.

“One thing is missing.”