Chapter 4: The Parking Lot

I did not sleep on Monday night either.

Lydia kissed me goodbye on Tuesday morning.

"Staff meeting at noon," she said, pulling on her coat. "I'll be late, so don't wait on dinner."

"Okay," I said.

It was the first time in five years I had thought about whether she was telling the truth.

At eleven-forty I was sitting in my car across from the hospital's staff lot.

My lunch sat untouched on the seat.

I felt ridiculous.

I had a stack of ungraded quizzes in the back.

I was watching my own wife.

She came out of the east door at 11:52.

She did not walk toward the cafeteria.

She got in her gray sedan and pulled out of the lot.

I let two cars go by before I followed.

She drove across town.

She parked on the street across from Alder Hill Academy and got out with her sunglasses on.

I stopped half a block behind her, killed the engine, and slid down in my seat.

It was recess.

The playground ran along the fence beside the road, and the kids poured across it in all their coats.

Lydia walked to the fence and stood there.

She put one hand through the chain links and she didn't move.

It took me a moment to find him.

Archie was running with three other boys near the swings, his dark hair standing straight up in the wind.

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