Chapter 23: The Stoop

Meredith's POV

My grandmother stood on the stoop of my townhouse at nine in the morning with a ring of keys in one hand and a box of contractor bags in the other.

"Hold this," she said, and gave me the bags.

"Gran, he's allowed one hour."

"He's allowed one hour with me in the room."

"You don't have to stay."

"Meredith Anne. I came to see this."

She turned the key and pushed the door open with her hip.

The house smelled the way it always had, of floor wax and the lemon soap I kept in the powder room.

I stood in the front hall and felt nothing at all for a moment.

Then I felt the staircase, and the long rug I had chosen over three weekends.

It was my house.

It was not a house with a husband in it. It was only mine.

Clark came up the walk at nine-thirty with two flattened boxes under his arm.

He wore jeans and a gray sweatshirt, and he had not shaved.

He stopped at the foot of the steps when he saw Bea.

"Mrs. Lang."

"Mr. Kovach."

"I appreciate this."

"It isn't for you," Bea said. "It's so the neighbors can see you leave."

Two women were watching from the next stoop.

One of them lifted her coffee cup.

Clark went red and followed Bea inside.

It was a strange hour.

He moved through the rooms and took down his own life one item at a time.

Shirts from the closet, which I did not go near.

His good watch.

His books, nine of them, from the study shelf.

Bea sat in a chair in the front hall with her purse on her knee and watched every box.

"That's not yours," she said, once, as he lifted a blue vase.

"It was a wedding gift."

"From my sister. To Meredith."

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Husband Chose My Best Friend Over Me, So I Took Everything Back from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.