The Dress Shop of Dreams by Menna van Praag Page A

between six o’clock, when he finishes work, and ten o’clock, when Walt starts to read. At midnight, when the station shuts down for the night, he goes home and tries to sleep. Although lately he’s kept writing late into the night until he falls asleep on the sofa in his office. Of course, as Dylan hadn’t anticipated, many of the women write back and he now has several correspondences tomaintain, in addition to the new letters that arrive every day. He no longer knows why he must respond to them all, only that he must, that he can’t leave any one unanswered. Their words, their sadness and desire, have settled into his heart and soaked into his blood. It has become his duty, his honor, his purpose in life.
    Cora calls the coroner’s number after running out of her parents’ house. It takes her a few hours to gather herself, to stop shaking long enough to press numbers into a phone. The coroner is surprised by Cora’s call and, perhaps unsurprisingly, refuses to discuss anything over the telephone, but suggests Cora come into the office the following afternoon.
    The next call Cora makes is to Etta, whom she owes an update on her progress and reassurance that she hasn’t fallen into the river or stepped in front of a bus. She’s been putting it off, worried to tell her grandmother about the police officer and, most especially, the fire flashback—or whatever it was—that happened at the house. How can she explain it?
    Taking a deep breath, with a shiver into her fingertips, Cora recalls crawling along the carpet, smelling the smoke, her own screaming echoing in her ears.
    “So I understand now,” she says, “what you mean about just knowing something, without having any proof.”
    “Well, that’s good,” Etta says. “I’m glad you’re not being a bloody-minded scientist about this.”
    Yes, things are changing, Cora could say, if she’d been able to explain exactly what and how. “So, why didn’t you ask the police to reopen the case before?”
    “How could I, when I had no evidence?” Etta says softly, and Cora can feel her grandmother’s sorrow seeping into the air andmixing with her own. “And also because I knew, somehow, that only you could solve the secret of their deaths. That, really, it was your mystery to answer, not mine.”
    Cora has an appointment with a coroner. A coroner. She sucks at the word, turning it over with her tongue as if it’s a slice of lemon she doesn’t want to swallow. She sits on a wooden chair outside a wooden door with a panel of frosted glass upon which are engraved the letters
DR. ALEX ELIOT—FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST
    The hospital corridor is blank, empty, stark. There are no tiles on the floor or bricks on the walls for Cora to count, so her nerves are bubbling up and spilling out into the air. The only saving grace is a clock: a large Victorian-style clock with a circular cream face painted with black Roman numerals. Cora multiplies and divides them at random, picking out prime numbers. But she can’t focus. She’s still unable to quite understand the turn her life has taken. What will she say to the coroner? How does one address such a person? Dr. Eliot? Pleased to meet you, Dr. Eliot. Would you kindly tell me how my parents died? Will you give me a copy of the autopsy report?
    Cora realizes she’s chewing her fingernail and stops. Sits on her hands. She glances up at the frosted-glass panel again, and before she can look away it opens. Dr. Eliot stands in the doorway with narrowed eyes and a thin, polite smile.
    “Cora Carraway?” she asks.
    Cora nods.
    “Come in.”

    Etta visits Fitzbillies several times a week. She doesn’t come because it’s her favorite café in Cambridge, though it’s become so over the years, but because it borders on the edge of a street she’s not allowed to cross, based on an agreement made long ago. Etta comes to remember and to hope. To remember the man she loved and hope that, maybe, just maybe, she might see him again.