Chapter 5: Tuesday at Ten

On Monday morning I filed for divorce at the county courthouse, and it didn't take long.

A woman at the window slid a form across the counter and said, "Do you need a pen, hon?"

That was the whole ceremony.

I walked out into the cold with a receipt and sat on the courthouse steps.

I ate a granola bar.

On Tuesday at ten o'clock a grey van with the agency's logo pulled up in front of the house on Water Street.

I had called to change the address myself, which was the first phone call of my life I had made without apologizing.

Neil came up the ramp with his bag over one shoulder and stopped two steps short of me.

He is tall and rangy, with sandy hair that needed cutting and a front tooth that leans slightly on the one beside it.

He looked like a man preparing to be hit.

"Before anything else," he said. "I owe you an apology about the cable."

"You brought a cable to my public humiliation."

"To his birthday. I didn't know it was going to be yours."

"What did you think it was for?"

"A sound system," Neil said. "It was a sound system."

I folded my arms.

"He asked me three weeks ago. Plug the tablet into the DJ's board when the toast starts."

"Don't unplug it for anything it says. I said sure. I should have asked why."

"You should have."

"I know."

"You knew something about my life, and I didn't."

"I knew about a cable," he said. "And I knew about the accountant."