Chapter 5: My House

Nobody laughed at Pamela's line.

Nobody had to.

His sister looked at the ceiling. Her husband looked at the floor.

Andrea looked at me with her chin tipped up, and her eyes were shining.

I looked at Max last.

"There's lemon cake," I told him. "Your favorite."

Then I walked out.

Nobody followed me.

I heard Pamela say, "Well. Let's eat before it gets cold," as the door swung shut.

I drove home with both hands tight on the wheel.

I didn't cry.

I went straight upstairs and pulled a box of black contractor bags out of the garage.

Jason's suits went first.

Then his running shoes, his quarter-zips, the steel watch box, the golf clubs from the hall closet.

I didn't fold anything.

I carried it all down and lined it up on the front porch beside the swing.

Eleven bags.

The house was mine.

I bought it in 2021, two years before I met him, with my own savings and a loan in my name only.

The red door. The porch swing. The crooked oak in the yard.

He had moved in with one suitcase and a son.

I left Max's room alone.

At six o'clock Jason's car pulled up to the curb.

Our neighbor across the street was out watering her mums.

She stopped watering.

Jason got out and saw the bags.

He stood on the sidewalk with his hands on his hips.

Max climbed out of the back seat slowly, holding a paper plate with a slice of my lemon cake under plastic wrap.

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