Chapter 10: The Statement

The hearing that afternoon went badly for Bryce and well for me.

The judge looked at the binder for ten minutes and then at his lawyer for ten more.

She denied his motion to freeze my father's money and ordered my joint account released.

She did not say a word about Kendra.

She did not have to.

By evening, Pinnacle's stock chatter on the trade sites had turned into a roar.

I did not read it.

I drove north to Harbor Springs at dusk, because the neighbor had called to say Kendra's red convertible was gone and the house was empty.

I wanted my winter coat.

I wanted my mother's recipe box, and I wanted to stand in my own kitchen without anyone's perfume in the air.

The green door was unlocked.

Kendra had left in a hurry.

A single blue slipper lay under the piano, and the wine bottle was still on the lid.

I put the bottle in the sink and the slipper in the trash.

Then I carried the recipe box out of the pantry and set it on the table.

I made tea, opened the window, and for the first time in a week I sat down.

The lake was gray and calm.

A loon cried somewhere out on the water.

I thought about the photograph of my parents, and about the way Bryce's face had drained of color at the front door.

It had been more than guilt.

Guilt turns a man red.

That had been fear, a deep animal fear, and I could not stop turning it over.

I got up.

The storage closet under the stairs held the boxes I had never unpacked from our last move.

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