Chapter 6: The Clip

By seven on Wednesday morning, forty thousand strangers had watched me grab my husband's arm.

I sat at my mother's kitchen table with my phone propped against the sugar bowl.

The caption on the clip had changed twice overnight.

First it was "jealous ex-wife."

Now it said "unstable ex-wife," with a photo of me from a festival, mid-blink, mouth open.

Under it a stranger had written:

"Imagine being so bitter you break into your husband's studio after he moved on with a girl who can actually sing."

"Turn it off," Donna said.

"I want to see the comments."

"You want to feel bad. That's different." She took the phone and laid it face down. "Eat your eggs."

Somebody pulled up in the driveway.

It was Abel, in his truck, and he did not get out.

I had last seen him at three in the morning, when he had driven me back to Madison in silence.

I had kept quiet too.

I went out onto the porch in my socks.

He rolled down the window and held out a paper cup of coffee.

"Infusion's at eight-thirty," he said. "I thought you'd need a ride. Your car's about to be sold."

"How do you know about my car?"

"There's a man in a gray sedan at the end of the street looking at it."

I turned.

A gray sedan was parked at the curb, and a man in a windbreaker held a clipboard and a phone.

Donna had called a buyer at six.

I hadn't known she could do that from a kitchen chair.

The man offered five thousand two hundred in cash.

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