The Weight of Gold
“Nothing good is convenient.”
She crossed the workshop floor — four steps over sawdust and the smell of linseed — and when she reached him she thought of all the things she had been given in her life that she had never chosen: the name, the estate, the topiary spheres, the obligation and the silverware and the seating chart. And she thought of Marlene’s coffee, dark and honest, and the bottle labeled ghost, and the way he had smiled at her in June as if she had said something genuinely funny, which she had.