Chapter 5: Moving Day

The moving truck came at eight on Monday morning, and by a quarter past, the whole street knew.

The woman next door was watering a lawn that didn't need it.

The man across the road found a reason to walk his dog twice past our mailbox.

Leigh had hired three movers and a van, and she had labeled every box in black marker.

Kitchen. Books. Winter coats. Jamie, weekends.

I stood in the hallway with my coffee and watched my wife take apart eleven years in under three hours.

It was very quiet work.

She didn't take the wedding china.

She didn't take the good sofa we had argued about for two weeks.

She took her books, her coats, her grandmother's quilt and the plant from the kitchen window.

When one of the movers lifted the lamp from our bedroom, she shook her head.

"That one stays," she said.

"It's Miles's."

It had never been mine.

She had picked it out, and she was leaving it anyway.

Jamie sat on the bottom stair with his backpack still on.

I had kept him home from school that morning because Leigh asked me to.

She hadn't asked for much else.

I sat down next to him.

"It's okay, buddy."

"Mom's only going ten minutes away."

"I know," Jamie said.

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