He did not find me.
Instead, he found the driver, who apparently told him only that I had gone to Brooklyn and tipped well. Grant called Lena again. She did not answer. He sent one message to my phone, forgetting I had left it behind, then another to my email.
Evelyn, I’m sorry. Please tell me where you are. I didn’t know you felt this alone.
I read the message on Lena’s laptop.
Anger moved through me, hot and clean.
He did not know because knowing would have required pausing long enough to ask.
Still, beneath the anger was sorrow.
Because once, Grant had asked. In the early years, he knew when I was quiet because of worry and when I was quiet because I was dreaming. He knew I liked burnt edges on toast. He knew I touched my necklace when I missed my mother. He knew I hated lilies because hospitals used them too often.
Where had that man gone?
Or had success simply given him permission to become someone already waiting inside him?
That evening, I walked alone through Carroll Gardens. Brownstones glowed warmly through rain-dark trees. Restaurants filled with voices and candlelight. A father carried a sleeping child across a crosswalk, pressing one hand protectively against the little girl’s back.
I stopped so suddenly someone behind me muttered and stepped around.
Grief arrived without warning.
Not dramatic. Not loud.
Just a hollow opening in the center of me.
I stood beneath a striped awning and cried for the baby I had lost, the marriage I had left, the artist I had abandoned, and the woman I had trained myself not to miss.
When I returned to Lena’s apartment, Grant was waiting across the street.
He looked drenched, exhausted, and very unlike the man who had laughed over whiskey the night before. His hair was wet. His tie was gone. He held my ring in his closed fist.
