The market hall at Vantry has been loud since five, and the string lights over the floor have burned so long that the warm bulbs have gone soft and blurred at the edges. Four hundred people off the pier and the upriver farms are still standing at the long tables. Your husband has held the same corner of the hall for an hour with one glass of red wine in his hand, and the wine is at the same level it was when it was poured.
Two cars have been idling at the end of the street since ten. Ferris Odell has been standing at the door in his coat, watching them instead of the room. Gustav has not looked at the cars once. He has looked at you four times.
"They are not coming in,"
he says without turning his head, answering a question you have not asked.
"They are waiting to see which door I use."
He sets the glass on the table, then picks it up again, and the veins stand up along the back of his hand as his fingers close around the stem.
"Four years, and I have walked out of this hall alone after every winter dinner. Tonight I am not doing that."
He reaches past you for your coat on the peg and holds it open, and the hall goes quiet the way it goes before a count is read.
"Leave the wine. Leave the glass on the table where they can see it."
He tips his chin at the door, at the two cars, at Ferris's back.
"You're riding with me to the ice house. Odalys Sorensen reads the count at a quarter past four, and I want you standing where I can see you while she does it."
He waits with the coat open and does not offer you his arm, because he is not walking you to a car. He is taking you into the other half of his life.