Chapter 22: What He Signs

Nolan's POV

I dropped Jo at Sonya's building at ten past eleven.

She leaned across the seat and kissed my cheek.

"Clean," she said. "Like we said. Go finish your part."

Then she got out of the car and went up the steps with her sister, and she didn't look back.

I sat there with the engine running for nearly a minute.

I had written that word myself, in an elevator, a month ago, and I had meant it as a courtesy.

It had never occurred to me that she would take it as a promise.

The house in Roland Park had every light on.

Bianca sat at the dining table with her lawyer, a gray woman in a gray suit who had a stack of paper squared in front of her.

I had not seen my wife in a plain sweater since our first year.

Her hair was in a knot, and she'd taken off every ring but one.

"You're late," she said.

"It's a long drive from the Foundation."

"I'm told it was a good night."

I sat down across from her.

The lawyer slid the papers my way and uncapped a pen.

The terms were simple, because Bianca had asked for nothing.

She was leaving the house, the cars and the joint accounts in my name, and she wanted her mother's jewelry and the dog.

We had never had a dog.

"I'm adopting one," Bianca said, when she saw my face. "Something large that doesn't lie."

"Bianca."

"Sign it, Nolan."

I took the pen.

For six years I had tried to be a husband to a woman who treated me like a lease she hadn't read.

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