“Pack a bag tonight, Elena. I’ll figure out the rest later.”
I stood up because my legs would not stay folded.
I walked to the bedroom because there was nowhere else to walk.
I opened the closet and put things into a duffel bag without seeing them.
Diane stood in the hallway with her arms folded across her chest.
“You did this,” I said to her.
She did not answer. She did not have to.
I drove three blocks, and then I could not drive anymore. I pulled over under a streetlight, and the rain came down soft against the windshield.
I looked at my left hand.
There was a pale band of skin where my ring had been.
I kept seeing Diane’s face in the hallway.
She looked composed and steady. Almost calm.
She had not looked like a woman watching a marriage end. She had looked like a woman watching a plan finish.
And somewhere under the shock, a colder thought was already rising: whatever this was, it had only just begun.
Three weeks bled into each other on Nora’s pull-out couch.
My phone stayed silent no matter how many times I checked it.
Marcus never answered.
