Chapter 4: The Garage

They discharged us on Thursday, and my whole married life was waiting in the lobby in nine cardboard boxes.

The security guard had been guarding them since Tuesday night.

"A van dropped them off at ten to midnight," he said. "A girl with a clipboard. She made me sign for them."

"Which clipboard?"

"The kind with a team logo."

Every box had a label in the publicist's assistant's neat blue marker.

The first one said CHASE'S THINGS (RETURN).

The second said WIFE: APPEARANCE WARDROBE (TEAM PROPERTY).

The third said WIFE: PERSONAL, and it was the smallest.

I opened the second one on the lobby floor with my son in the crook of my good arm.

It was full of the sweaters I had worn to every home game.

Each one had a tag pinned to the sleeve with a date and a camera angle.

"They own my sweaters?" I said.

"It's on page thirty," I said. "The team owns the game-day wardrobe. I read it forty times and never thought I'd need that page."

I put the sweaters back, one by one, and closed the box.

Then I opened the little one.

It held my sewing kit, my mother's recipe cards, a framed photo of my dad's truck, and a pair of socks with holes in them.

That was everything I owned that the team had not paid for.

Three years of marriage, and it fit in one small box.

Lyle picked it up without being asked.

"I can take one box," he said. "The Corolla seats four. I've got a baby seat in the garage from my granddaughter. That's where we're going."

"Where?"

"Gretna. It's thirty minutes. I've got an apartment over my garage that my wife used for her sewing. It's empty."

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