“A lady from the parish brought them by while you were at the clinic,” she said, turning her back to me to set the onion on the cutting board.
“Which parish?” I asked. “We haven’t been to St. Jude’s since I was ten.”
“A different one,” she said, her knife scraping against the wood. “She had a whole box of winter wear in her trunk.”
“They are double-stitched,” I said, stepping closer to the radiator. “And they are exactly my size.”
“It was a lucky guess,” she said, her shoulders going rigid under her cardigan.
“We can’t even afford thirty dollars for the gas bill this month,” I said. “But suddenly someone leaves sixty-dollar boots on our floor?”
“People give away nice things sometimes, Fiona,” she said, her breath catching as she spoke. “You don’t have to look for a catch in everything.”
She did not look up from the cutting board, but the tip of her knife nicked the side of her thumb.
I touched the thick leather collar of the boot, finding it remarkably supple and dry.
