Page 7 of Sweet Ruin

Instead, I watch the frame edges. I’m looking for anything a stranger could use. A face. A clock. A voice.

A receipt.

Twice, I get something. At about forty seconds, the camera swings and catches the nightstand, and my lamp, and his watch sitting on top of a magazine.

That’s Connor’s watch. I bought it for him for our fifth anniversary. It’s something. It’s not enough, but it’s something.

At a minute fifty, there’s the corner of our closet door and the sleeve of his gray work coat hanging on the back of it.

I hit share on all three files and save them to my phone, straight to the device.

Now, Viv can empty that album whenever she likes. She can burn her whole phone or dunk it in her rose-petal bath at the Four Seasons and it won’t matter.

It’s mine now.

I let out a weary breath and go to swipe out, but the third video is still playing, the last few seconds. Something stills my hand just before I close it.

Connor’s voice, sighing happily. “This is so fucking reckless. We’re gonna get caught.”

Off-camera, out past the edge of the frame, my sister laughs.

“Relax. She never notices anything.”

2

DELILAH

“—and can you write Merry Christmas, Gladys on the big one?”

“I can write anything you want on it,” I say. “I just did a cake for a nice lady’s fourth divorce that said ‘All My Exes Can Eat Shit and Die.’“

Mrs. Kowalczyk laughs at me. I box her order, ring her up, and hand it across the counter.

“You’re an angel, Delilah,” she tells me.

“Takes one to know one, Mrs. K. Merry Christmas.”

It’s been a doozy of a morning. Since the millisecond we opened, it’s like every single person in Sunset Park has been through my doors. I’m on the precipice of internal collapse, and the only thing keeping me from hurling myself off the edge is a steady stream of espresso.

But as long as I keep moving, keep working, I can forget what I saw in the gray light of the morning. Video? What video? Never heard of her.

“Delilah Dorsey.” Priya emerges from the back with a hotel pan on her hip and her eyebrows already up. “You told me you were going home.”

“I... did?”

“Liar!” cries Priya. “She’s a liar! Seize her and burn her at the stake!”

“I think you’re confusing liars with witches.”

She frowns. “Am I? Oh, well.”

“Not that I’m not in favor of putting liars through heinous executions, though,” I mutter under my breath.

“What’s that? Gotta speak up, love.”

I shake my head. “Nothing. Just some philosophical musings.”

“Alright, my little Aristotle. Don’t think too hard, you’ll give yourself a headache.”