Beneath a Transparent Dream novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: What Eli Kept

Eli did not follow her, because she had asked him not to.

He stood at the foot of the stairs until the street door stopped swinging, and then he turned the lamp off over the drafting table and sat in the dark.

At five he drove out to Cape Elizabeth.

The glass house was cold and empty.

Cora's boxes stood in the front hall where he had stacked them, taped and labelled in his block capitals.

He walked past them to the pantry and pressed the panel beside the shelf of olive oil.

It opened on a closet the size of a coat rack, with a small grey box on a hook.

He had built it in August, in an afternoon, when he stopped believing what his wife told him about where she had been.

He put the earphones on and played the file from the second Sunday of August.

Cora's laugh, bright. A cork. Zach, close to the microphone, talking about Matilda.

Then a third voice, dry and level, from the head of his own kitchen table.

"She'll sign whatever she's given, Zachary. She always has. The oven was a clever touch."

Eli took the earphones off.

It was Judith, saying it in front of his wife, over his wine, with her pearls on.

He had played that file thirty times, and every time it made him want to put his fist through something he had designed.

He copied it to a drive and put the drive in his coat.

The front door opened behind him.

"I thought I'd find you here, playing with your toys," Cora said.

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