Love After Layoffs novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Empty House

I read the Chairman's text twice and put the phone face down on my knee.

"He wants to watch you at a party," Brooks said.

"He wants to watch me squirm."

"That too."

I'd spent Thursday night on Yvonne's couch, because the team needed her whiteboard and she needed company.

I hadn't been home in a day and a half, and I told Brooks to take Squirrel Hill Road to the house.

"I'll just walk you to the door," he said.

"Fine."

I didn't see it until I had the key in the lock.

The porch light was on, and the front curtains were gone.

Every curtain.

The door swung inward onto a hall that echoed.

I stood in the doorway with my hand on the frame.

The couch was gone.

The dining table was gone, and the television, and the rug my mother had hauled home from a flea market.

The framed photographs were gone from the walls and the pale squares where they'd hung stood out.

In the kitchen, the cabinets hung open, and every plate and every pan had vanished.

On the counter sat a single sheet of paper, weighed down by a lime.

Brooks read it over my shoulder.

"Taking what I paid for."

"Piano is mine too."

"I bought the tuning."

"Movers Saturday 8 a.m. Sign the paper and you can have the house."

"J."

A very small, hot sound came out of my throat.

"Janine."

"Don't." I put my hand up. "Give me one minute."

I walked through the house room by room.

The upstairs bed was gone, bed frame and mattress and all, and our bedroom was a square of bare floor with one window.

In the hall closet I found the one thing he'd forgotten: a green sleeping bag from a camping trip we took before we got married.

Brooks stood in the bedroom doorway while I held it.

"He thinks he's broken you," he said.

"He's made me furious. That's different."

I went downstairs, sat cross-legged on the kitchen floor, and opened my laptop.

Yvonne's lawyer friend had emailed me the forms that morning, and I'd already filled in most of them.

My hands didn't shake.

I typed in the date of our marriage and the date of separation.

Then I clicked the box that said I wanted to keep the house.

Then I hit submit.

The little wheel spun for a long second.

A confirmation number came up.

"There," I said. "Filed."

Brooks sat down on the floor across from me.

He had taken his jacket off and rolled up his sleeves, and his forearms were thick and freckled.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"Like I've been starving for six years and just smelled bread."

His laugh was low and surprised.

"I ordered a pizza on the way up the stairs," he said.

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