He Reversed His Vasectomy for Another Woman, So I Took Everything novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Black Trash Bags

My key didn't fit the lock on my own front door.

The house on Beacon Hill had been in my mother's family for four generations.

Someone had changed the lock between yesterday morning and this afternoon.

On the top step, in a row, sat six black trash bags tied at the neck.

I opened the first one.

My winter coats, folded wrong.

The second held shoes, and the third held my mother's sweaters, the soft grey ones I had never let anyone wash.

Cosimo stood on the sidewalk below with his hands in his coat pockets.

He didn't say anything.

If he said one kind word, I would sit down on that step and not get up.

"He has moved fast," I said.

"He's had help." Cosimo looked at the door. "I can have it open in a minute."

"No."

"Lydia."

"If you open it, Benton gets to call the police on a burglar, and I'd like him to have to explain that to a judge."

"Then we leave the bags."

"We take the bags."

So I carried them down myself, one at a time, while Cosimo's driver loaded each into the trunk.

Nobody on the street pretended not to watch.

On the fourth trip, a voice behind me said, "You were always too proud to ask for a hand."

Rosemary McAlister stood at the bottom of the steps in her gardening cardigan, with a paper bag from the liquor store in one arm and a long brass key in the other hand.

She was sixty-six and she had never once let anyone carry her bag.

"Aunt Rosemary."

"I was in the middle of lunch when your father called me to say you were unwell." Her glasses caught the light. "I thought, now there's a man who has never seen his daughter unwell in his life."

She put the bag down and hugged me hard.

She smelled like woodsmoke and peppermint.

"I'm so sorry," she said into my hair.

"I'm fine."

"That's a lie, but it's a good one. Keep it."

Over my shoulder she looked at Cosimo.

"Cosimo Carraro. You got old."

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