Chapter 13: Fridge Court

I carried the Post-it into the bedroom and stood at the foot of the bed with it.

Tristan was awake. He sat up with the sheet around his waist and saw what was in my hand.

His face did something careful.

"You found the bottom one," he said.

"You knew it was there."

"I looked at it every morning for six months."

"And you never said, 'Vivian, this is old'?"

"It had your signature on it."

"I wrote it at three in the morning!"

"It had a date," he said. "It had a signature. It was the most complete document you'd given me all year."

I sat on the edge of the mattress and held the Post-it up to the window.

"I was tired," I said. "I meant until the first review closed. That was June."

"The note says reviews. Plural."

"Plural was a typo."

"It was in ink."

"You are a director of client operations. You know what a stale instruction is."

"I know what an instruction from my wife is."

That stopped me for a second, because it was the nicest thing he had said to me in months, and he had said it to win an argument.

I took a breath. I decided to be billable about it.

"Fine," I said. "Court is in session. Opening statement. In March you sent me a calendar invite for my birthday."

"I remember."

"It said, 'Birthday. Accept or decline.'"

He shut his eyes.

"I ate a slice of grocery store cake over the sink," I said. "I did not accept. I did not decline. I stood there and waited for a reply from nobody."

"I sat in the parking lot for forty minutes," he said. "I had the cake. It was in the trunk."

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