Chapter 4: The Manual

I didn't go back to my desk.

I drove to my mother's house instead, the narrow brick one where I grew up, and let myself in with the key I'd had since high school.

Dolores was at the kitchen table sorting pills into a plastic case.

She looked up, saw my face, and didn't ask what was wrong.

"Sit down," she said.

"Leigh left me," I said.

"She's divorcing me, Mom."

"Sit down, Miles."

I sat.

She finished the Tuesday compartment, snapped the lid shut, and folded her hands on the table.

"Did she tell you she came here?"

I stared at her.

"When?"

"Three weeks ago, on a Sunday, while you were at your golf thing."

"She sat where you're sitting."

"She told me she was leaving, and she told me why."

I felt the floor tilt.

"You knew?"

"I've known about that woman for two years."

"Leigh asked me not to say a word to you, and I kept my mouth shut because she asked."

"I have wanted to slap you every Sunday since."

"Mom."

"Don't Mom me."

My mother pushed her glasses up her nose.

"I raised you better than this, and I failed anyway."

"Leigh has been the best thing that ever happened to you, and you've treated her like furniture."

I said what a man says when he has nothing.

"She isn't even angry. She wasn't upset at all."

"She was done being upset a long time ago," Dolores said.

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