The coat had occupied peg nineteen for eleven winters. Every January, Mara copied its ticket number onto the disposal list. Every February, the market caretaker crossed it out. He never offered a reason, and she had mistaken that silence for ownership.
When he retired, a woman arrived carrying the other half of the ticket. Her father had left the coat while buying flowers. He died on the bus home, and the flowers reached her mother without him. The family had found the ticket that morning inside an unopened birthday card.
Mara brought down the coat. In its pocket was a folded market map, with the flower stall circled twice. The woman touched the circle, then asked why nobody had thrown the coat away. Mara opened the old disposal book. Beside nineteen, the caretaker had written the same two words each year: still claimed.
The woman took the coat but left the ticket. Mara put it beneath the last entry. For the first time, she could close the book without carrying nineteen into another year.