Chapter 10: What I Wrote Down

Anders's POV

I let her walk away because I had no right to follow.

The notebook was still on the truck seat when I got there.

I sat in the cab with the lamp off and read my own first page by the light of the sodium bulb.

She's lying. Not Cora. Find out why.

I had written that fourteen months ago in a cold office with my hands going numb.

I had not found out why.

I knew how.

I did not know why a woman I'd taught to drive a boat would spend five years learning how to take my wife apart.

I drove back to the house we had bought together, and the porch light was on.

Cora had left it on every night since she was twenty-six.

It had been on since the night of the dinner, because I couldn't make myself turn it off.

Today was Tuesday, and I had not been in the bedroom once.

I went in and did not turn on the lights.

The kitchen still smelled of her coffee, though the pot had been empty since Friday.

Her reading glasses were on the windowsill.

Her hairbrush was on the bathroom counter with three dark hairs in it.

I did not touch any of it.

I slept in the truck, in the driveway, with a blanket from the yard, because I could not lie down in that bed.

I had done that every night since Friday.

There was no one to tell.

At eleven that night, a knock came at the kitchen door.

Signe stood on the step with a covered pot of soup and a smile.

"You look awful," she said. "I brought you something."

I opened the door.

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