She found her dress on the chair beside the window. He watched her pick it up — matter-of-fact, the way a woman collects something from a familiar floor — and something in him went quiet.
He hadn't moved since she opened her eyes. He didn't move now.
She shook the dress once and stepped into it. He watched her back, the line of her spine. The zipper she reached for herself. Got it most of the way.
"You slept," he said. He hadn't meant to say anything.
She turned. The light was in her eyes. "I did," she said, as if she also found this surprising.
He wanted to say: stay. He said instead: "There's coffee."
She considered this. He could see the small calculation behind her face — the scale tipping, the readjustment. She sat back on the edge of the bed, in the place she had been. Not quite close enough to touch. The back of the dress still open.
"Just coffee," she said.
"Just coffee," he agreed.
They both knew it wasn't. They let the kindness stand anyway, the way adults do when the morning requires a fiction and there's no good reason not to provide one.
She went to the kitchen. He heard her finding things: the cabinet, the canister, the drawer. She moved like someone who knew where things were kept, or didn't need to. Some women are like that.
He got up when he smelled it. The light had changed. He stood in the doorway and she was at the counter with her back to him, the dress still open along her spine, and he thought: I will remember this. The exact quality of the light. The sound she made when she found the right drawer.
"Mugs?" she said. She hadn't turned.
"Above you," he said.