Then she saw my face.
“Oh, Evie.”
That was all.
No questions. No dramatic gasp. No speech about finally leaving or needing answers immediately. Lena simply stepped aside and pulled me inside.
Her apartment smelled like turpentine, coffee, and lavender laundry soap. Canvases leaned against every wall. A cat named Matisse glared at me from the sofa as if my heartbreak had interrupted his schedule.
Lena made tea I did not drink. She gave me towels. She took my wet coat. Then she sat beside me on the rug and waited.
I said the first true thing I could manage.
“He laughed.”
Her jaw tightened.
“At you?”
“No. That might have been better.” I stared at my hands. They looked strange without the ring. Younger, almost. “He laughed because someone joked I might leave. He said he could always marry again.”
Lena closed her eyes.
“I left the ring on the floor,” I whispered.
A tear slipped down my cheek, surprising me. I thought I had used all of them already.
Lena reached for my hand.
“Good.”
The word was not cruel. It was solid.
I leaned into her shoulder and finally let myself shake.
Morning came gray and slow. Rain still tapped the windows, but more gently now. I woke on Lena’s sofa beneath a quilt painted with sunlight from the lamp she had left burning.
