Chapter 2
Grant came through the front door at six Friday morning.
Willa ran to him barefoot, still in her pajamas.
Her backpack waited by the door, the orange fox clipped to its zipper.
All day Thursday, I had told myself those foxes were probably sold at every gas station along I-5.
Grant smelled like cold air. He kissed Willa's hair and carried her into the kitchen.
By seven, he was at the stove in gray flannel pajama bottoms, flipping a pancake in our scratched skillet.
Willa sat at the counter with my phone, taking picture after picture of him making breakfast.
"Look, Daddy!" she said, holding the screen toward him. "Mickey Mouse ears!"
Grant laughed and tapped the tip of her nose. "Only the best for my favorite girl."
He poured syrup over her plate, then slid the phone back across the counter to me.
"I have calls all morning," he said, kissing my cheek. "Then I'm heading to Cedarwick at three. I'll pick Willa up, we'll get ice cream, and I'll read Bunny Moon before bed."
Willa stopped chewing. "The whole book?"
"The whole book," Grant said. "Promise."
By two in the afternoon, I was three miles away in a basement rental, scrubbing mildew from the shower grout.
My phone buzzed on the bathroom counter.
I pulled off one glove and picked it up. "Hey. You on your way to Cedarwick?"
"Maren, something came up with a regional account," Grant said. "I'm jammed. You'll have to get Willa."
I stopped scrubbing.
"Grant, it's two-forty. Pickup is at three. I'm in the middle of a turnover clean."
"I know," Grant said. "But I can't walk out in the middle of a client meeting."
"If I leave now, I lose eighty dollars."
"Maren, something changed. I need you to cover this."
"You promised her."
"And I'm asking my wife to back me up. Just go get our kid."
"What am I supposed to tell Willa?"
"I'll explain later."
He hung up.
The landlord was already standing by the open bathroom door, his keys jangling in his palm.
"I'll pay you for the two hours," the landlord said when I told him I had to go. "But I need somebody who can finish today."
He handed me eighty dollars instead of the hundred and sixty we had agreed on.
"I'll call somebody else for the next unit."
I hit every red light between the rental and Cedarwick Academy.
Willa was sitting in the front office beside Ms. Penrose, her coat zipped and her backpack between her feet.
She kept pressing the fox's left ear—the way Grant had told her to send him a kiss.
"You're twenty-two minutes late," the receptionist said, sliding a clipboard across the counter. "There's a twenty-five-dollar late fee."
"I know," I said. "I'm sorry."
Willa looked past me toward the glass front doors.
"Daddy didn't come," she said.
I buckled Willa into her booster seat.
Grant's text lit up my phone.
Did you get her? Tell her the client meeting ran over.
I dialed his number.
He answered immediately. "You got her?"
"Yes."
"Then tell her I'm sorry. Tell her—"
"No."
"Maren."
"You tell her."
I put him on speaker and handed Willa the phone.
Willa held it with both hands. "Daddy?"
Grant didn't answer right away.
"Hey, bug," he said. "Daddy's so, so sorry. The client meeting ran late right when I was heading to the car. You understand, right?"
Willa listened without answering.
The fox hung from her backpack between her knees.
Then she handed the phone back to me.
At seven, Grant sent one text.
Problem with the Salem account. Staying overnight. Read Bunny Moon to her for me.
He didn't call Willa again before bedtime.
At bedtime, Willa put Bunny Moon on the pillow beside her.
"Want me to read it?" I asked.
She shook her head. "Daddy promised."
By nine, she was asleep with the fox tucked under her chin.
The book was still closed.
Saturday morning arrived cold and overcast.
Briarstone was silent behind its security gates. Number 442 stood at the end of a private drive, all dark glass and clean stone. My Civic looked older than it ever had parked outside the three-car garage.
I entered through the side door by the garage and set my plastic caddy on the mudroom bench.
A brown leather jacket hung from the center hook.
I lifted it down and turned the left sleeve toward the light.
The pale scrape was still there. Three years ago, Grant had clipped a concrete pillar in our apartment garage, and I had spent an hour trying to rub the scuff out with leather conditioner.
Six months ago, Grant came home from San Francisco and told me he had left the jacket in an Uber.
I was the one who filed the lost-item report.