The next day, Infinite Emporium was packed with last-minute Christmas shoppers. They drifted through the aisles in winter coats, trailing the smell of cold air and cigarette smoke, their arms full of bags and their faces wearing the strained but hopeful look of people with too many gifts left to buy and too little money to buy them. Carols played softly from speakers hidden somewhere in the ceiling. Nothing about the place suggested that anything had happened there the night before.
In the furniture section, a woman stood before a leather couch she knew she couldn't afford. It was the deep brown of a good saddle, with rolled arms and brass studs along the seams, and it sat under a warm spotlight as if it had been waiting for her. She ran her fingertips along the armrest and then pulled her hand back, as though the price tag might somehow sense the touch.
"That one is a beauty," Henry said, appearing at her side with an easy, unhurried smile. His grey suit was pressed, his handshake dry and warm. "Go ahead, try it out. That leather is so soft, you'll feel like you're sitting on a cloud."
She hesitated, then lowered herself onto the cushion. It gave beneath her with a quiet sigh, and her shoulders loosened for the first time all day, the strain of her husband’s infidelity taking its toll on her. For a moment she looked like a woman who had forgotten what she was there to worry about.
"Oh, I don't think I can afford it," she said, smoothing her palm over the arm. "It's lovely. It would be perfect in my new apartment. But it's out of my range, I'm afraid."
"You don't have to pay for it all at once. We have a layaway plan."
She looked up at him, and the doubt crept back into her face. "But what if I can't pay it off?"
Henry's smile warmed by a degree, patient and kind, the smile of a man who had answered this question many times before.
"Don't worry," he said. "We can always work something out."