Evelyn hesitated only long enough to remember the rain, and then the steady beat of her own pulse answering the storm. She accepted the vial.
Evelyn returned several times, though she had little cause, because the pharmacy had become a place to test the elasticity of memory—how far it could stretch without snapping. The proprietor—whose name she learned by degrees: Mr. Halvorsen—never asked what people sought beyond the words they offered. He simply measured out dusk and sealed it with coin-colored ink.
She thanked him and left with the photograph folded into her palm. The town exhaled. The rain began to fall again, in no particular hurry.
“Pharmacyloretocom New?” she repeated.