Chapter 19: The Bag

I came home early on Monday because the head appraiser sent me out with a cold.

The apartment door was unlocked.

Giles was in the kitchen with his back to me and his phone against his ear.

"No, Mom, it's done," he said. "The contract's gone."

I stopped in the hall with my bag on my shoulder.

"They called it a pause pending review. That means gone."

"The partnership's gone too. My boss gave it to the man who sits two desks down."

His voice was level.

"No. I don't regret it. I'd do it again tonight."

I put my hand over my mouth.

"She doesn't know yet. I'm not going to tell her until I have something else lined up."

He listened for a while.

"Mom, she has enough. Don't call her."

I backed into the bedroom without a sound.

I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the quilt with the grass stain.

Dean had cost me a wedding date and a house.

Now my marriage had cost the man I'd married the thing he'd worked eight years for.

Pity, I thought. His mother's pushing. A debt he thought he owed.

It was the old misreading, and I knew it was.

I believed it anyway.

I took my duffel bag from the closet.

I put in two sweaters, my jeans, my grandmother's brooch.

I left the eight quilts where they were, because they belonged to the bed now.

I was going to go to Phyllis's, or to a hotel, or anywhere that wasn't in his way.

I zipped the bag and carried it to the front door.

Giles was standing in the hall.

He had heard the zipper.

He looked at the bag, and at me.

"You heard," he said.

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