Chapter 4

I stared at Sophie’s message for ten seconds and stopped looking for excuses for Grant.

“When you’re ready to hear everything, I’ll tell you,” I replied. “I won’t ask you to choose between us.”

She didn’t answer.

A few minutes later, Diane texted that Grant would stay with her that night. He needed peace, she said, not more of my “interrogation.”

That gave me the time I needed.

At noon, I viewed a furnished apartment fifteen minutes from the clinic. The living room was small, the kitchen barely fit one person, and the bedroom faced a parking lot. The second room had space for a desk and a door that locked.

The shortest lease was three months.

When the landlord named the deposit and first month’s rent, I calculated the cost. Between this apartment and my share of our household expenses, I would save almost nothing for months.

I signed anyway.

That afternoon, I returned home for my computer, work files, clothes, and personal documents. My mother’s photograph stood on the bedroom dresser. She was sitting on the deck of the lake cabin with a blue blanket across her knees.

I wrapped the picture in a sweater and placed it in a box.

Inside the nightstand was a photograph from our tenth anniversary.

Grant laughed as eight-year-old Sophie pushed our faces into the cake. Behind it was one from the week we bought our first house, paint streaking his shirt.

I put both back. I wasn’t ready to pack away the years when we had still worked on the same life.

After moving the last box, I left a letter on the kitchen counter and emailed Grant the same message.

I had moved out. From now on, we would discuss shared bills, the houses, and his medical appointments by text or email. He could remain in our home, but he could no longer use my income to pay Celia’s expenses.

Grant called almost immediately.

I didn’t answer.

His messages followed.

“You actually moved out?”

“Over a document I don’t remember?”

“When my memory comes back, you’ll regret taking this so far.”

I turned my phone facedown on the desk in my new apartment and continued connecting my computer.

One desk leg wobbled, so I folded a moving receipt and wedged it underneath.

At 9:17 that evening, my phone sounded again.

This time, it wasn’t Grant.

The smart thermostat at the lake cabin had sent an alert. The temperature had been raised from fifty-five degrees to seventy-two, and a new device had accessed the system.

The cabin wasn’t rented. No one should have been there.

I opened the app and checked the door log. Someone had entered the correct code twenty minutes earlier.

That afternoon, Grant had told Sophie he was too dizzy to shower alone. The doctor had also ordered him not to drive for forty-eight hours.

I grabbed my coat and keys.

Forty minutes later, I turned off my headlights beneath the trees across from the cabin. Grant’s SUV was parked outside. His hospital discharge papers were still lying on the driver’s seat.

The living room lights were on.

I walked along the side of the cabin and stopped beside a window. The curtains had not been fully closed, leaving a gap several inches wide.

Grant stood in front of the fireplace without the bandage on his head. He held a beer in one hand and pointed at papers on the table with the other.

Celia sat on the couch. The key with the blue ribbon lay in front of her.

I didn’t knock on the window or open the door.

I took out my phone and started recording.

“How long are you going to keep pretending?” Celia asked.

“Until the listing agreement expires,” Grant said. “Helen will get angry, but she never actually leaves.”

“Do you really remember what you promised her?”

Grant answered:

“Every word.”