On Sundays he would go to the bakery, grab two bagels, and take his Sabbath at her dance studio on tenth. She had live piano during her classes, and when they were over she would dance alone, he taking the bench and plucking out a sonatina or arabesque.

He always knew the right time to come. On Sundays, just after noon at this time of year, early fall’s sun would bounce in through their fifth-floor window and catch in all the mirrors, making her white linens electric. The line of her foot would extend and be bathed in its own halo.

And then when he got tired of playing, he would lean back on the ground, open up the bakery bag, and eat as she danced to old vinyls. Rubinstein marked the skid of her bare toes along the wood, or Debussy found his violins cry the loudest when her ankle flexed its own rosined tendons.

Her particular inflection of movement was the only thing that kept him coming. He couldn’t stand straight himself without her own plumb line posture.