As I walked, my mother walked with me. She was in the sensible shoes of the women with their net bags, and in the window of the bookshop where I saw another of our book club selections, I spied her tan raincoat, a thousand years old and still in perfect condition, because she took care of things. The earl was gone, and I would miss him, grieve him, but it was my mother’s loss I felt in the cold rain of that English afternoon. I wanted to talk to her just one more time.
