Chapter 4: The Pickup Line

The lawyer called at ten past two on Monday.

I took it in my car in the grocery store lot.

She was brisk, and she was kind about it.

"Don't tell him," she said. "Don't change anything he can see.

"Keep your own pay going into your own account."

"I've done that."

"Good. Copy every statement and every photo, and keep the copies off any device in that house."

"Why?"

"Because people who hide things from you usually check what you've found."

I wrote it all on the back of a receipt.

Then I drove to the elementary school for pickup.

Cars lined the block, and the parents stood in clumps on the grass with their coffees.

I stood at the edge, where I always stood.

Cody came out first, holding a painting of a purple dog.

Kristen's son came out a minute after, dragging his backpack by one strap.

Kristen hurried across the grass in her work clothes, bright and out of breath.

"Maggie! I am so glad I caught you."

She kissed the air next to my cheek.

"Quick favor. Thursday night, I have a dentist appointment I can't move. Could you take him from three until, like, nine?"

Three until nine was not a dentist appointment.

I thought about the lake house.

"No," I said.

Kristen's smile stayed where it was.

"Sorry?"

"I can't do Thursday." I said it in my normal voice. "I can't do most Thursdays from now on."

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