Chapter 24: The Door Left Open

In October, a month after classes started, the lawyer from the party called me.

"It's closed," she said. "Two years, and he's lost his licence."

I did not ask about my mother.

I had stopped checking my phone for her name.

"The building is being cleared this week," the lawyer said. "If you want to see the office before the painters come, the landlord will let you in."

I told her I would think about it.

I thought about it for one night, with my head on Mitch's arm.

The next morning, I asked him to drive me.

The fourth floor smelled of wet paint and floor polish.

The landlord unlocked the door with an ordinary key and went away to answer his phone.

I stood on the threshold.

The room was empty.

The leather couch was gone, and the armchair and the low table with its box of tissues.

The tall plant had been taken out by the police with a screwdriver and a plastic bag, and a pale ring of dust showed where its pot had stood.

The sage-green walls were bare, and the afternoon light fell through the window and lay across the boards.

It was a small room.

I had never noticed how small it was, or that it had a window at all.

Mitch stood behind me in the hall.

He had not asked to come in.

"You can wait out here," I said.

"I can wait wherever you want."

"I want you in here."

He came in, and the floor creaked under his boots.

He stood where he had stood on the first Tuesday, near the wall, with his hands at his sides.

I closed the door behind us, and then I opened it again.

I pushed it all the way back until the rubber stop caught.

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