Chapter 17: Not Going Back

The locksmith Travis called had the door open in four minutes.

"It's her lease," Travis told him. "She's got a right to her own things."

"Whose name's on the building?" the locksmith asked.

"My mother's. Open it anyway."

He did.

I stood on the porch beside Kendra and watched the man who used to be my husband carry out a kitchen chair.

Eli backed his truck up to the curb at two.

He and Travis did not speak for the first three boxes.

They carried a mattress between them down the front steps, one at each end.

A neighbor came out on her stoop to watch.

"Watch your end," Eli said.

"I've got it."

"You're about to drop it on the rail."

"I've got it," Travis said, and he did.

My friend came up the walk with coffee in a cardboard tray and four lids.

"I've decided I'm running a hotel," she said.

"Kendra and her daughter can have the downstairs room. There's a futon, and I'll deal with the cat."

Kendra had been holding herself together all afternoon.

She put both hands over her mouth now, and nodded, and couldn't say anything.

Her daughter held a stuffed rabbit under one arm and watched the men with serious eyes.

"Are those our things?" she asked.

"Yes, honey."

"Is Grandpa R. coming?"

Kendra looked at me.

"He'll come," I said. "He'll come tonight, if your mother wants him to."

The little girl nodded once and hugged her rabbit.

By five o'clock the truck was full.

The duplex had a sign on the door that said Property of Gail Dunning, and nothing else of Kendra's was left inside.

Travis stood on the walk with his hands empty.

"I'll pay her first and last month somewhere," he said to me. "Wherever she wants. It's my money, it's not my mother's."

"Ask Kendra."

"I did. She said to ask you."

"Then pay it," I said. "And leave your number with the lawyer for her."

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