Snowflakes swirled outside the window of the silk shop. Louisa checked her watch: almost closing time. She’d been working every afternoon for two weeks now and still no sign of the thieves. She closed the magazine she’d been reading, got up, and meandered among the bolts of silk stacked on tables in the center of the cavernous room, losing herself in the piles of cloth — the bright jewel tones, the brocades, the gold-threaded flower patterns. Running her fingers over a turquoise silk, she pictured a dress, swirling around her ankles as she and Francis danced at the Paradise Club.  Or better yet, the two of them sitting across from each other at a table in a rooftop restaurant. She imagined Francis taking her hand, his lips forming a question, and stopped short, the silk dangling from her fingertip. She realized she was envisioning a marriage proposal. The silk slid off her finger. 

The idea wasn’t completely far-fetched. Francis had told her he loved her. But did she love him? There was the real question. She wasn’t sure. She looked into a full-length mirror against the wall as if the answer might be in her reflection.
“Hello, I am Mrs. Holland,” she said, trying on the name to see how it fit.  
            The bell above the door tinkled as a blast of cold air barged in, raising goosebumps on her neck. She turned to see a stout middle-aged woman bundled in a dark wool coat and a black rolled-brim hat, snow dusting her shoulders, with a boy about six years old at her side. The woman smiled at Louisa as she came forward. She was missing a front tooth. 
            “May I help you?” Louisa asked. 
            “I believe you have a package of silk thread for me.”
            “Your name?” Louisa walked to the counter where the packages were kept. 
            “Mrs. Lampkin,” she said. 
            Louisa looked through the small packages under the counter.  “Ah, yes, here it is.” She brought the package to the counter. 
            “They say this has been the coldest January on record,” the woman commented.
            “Indeed, and it’s not over yet,” Louisa said. “That will be one dollar and forty-five cents.” 
            The woman handed her an envelope. “Keep the change, dear,” she said. Louisa peered inside the envelope, swallowed when she saw the sum, and then looked up at the woman. This kind-looking woman and child were the thieves? Her heart rate suddenly accelerated. 
            “And would you mind looking after the boy for me? Just for a while?” The woman nodded at the child, a sullen-faced boy in knickers and a jacket with a tweed cap on his head.
            “The boy? You want to leave him here?” Louisa asked, dumbfounded. 
            Even though there was no one else in the shop, the woman leaned forward and said in a tight whisper, “That’s the way it works, dearie.” 
            “I see.” Louisa eyed the child once more.  
            The boy came around the counter, and Louisa handed him a peppermint candy from the jar they kept for children. She didn’t think it a good idea for children to have candy in a silk house, but mothers knew that what their children damaged they must buy, so sticky accidents rarely happened.  
            “You be good for the nice lady,” the woman said to the boy. She left, and the boy hunkered down on a crate behind the counter. 
            “Do try not to touch any silk,” Louisa whispered. 
            The boy ignored her. He propped his elbow on his knee and put his chin on his elbow, posed like the statue of The Thinker. He was awfully young to be a criminal. 
            At five o’clock, Louisa locked up the shop and left. The boy hadn’t move from the crate where he sat. It was an ingenious plan. Train a child to hide in the store and then unlock the door when the thieves arrive later that night