Chapter 4

The following Sunday, Mara arrived at Cedar & Finch alone.

She chose the small table by the front window instead of the booth. It was not a dramatic gesture. The booth was occupied by a young family with a stroller and too many paper cups. Mara was unexpectedly glad. The old place belonged to the room now, not to her hurt.

She ordered coffee and opened the sketchbook she had carried for years without using. On the first page, she drew the curve of the café window, then the crooked reflection of an umbrella outside. Her hand was stiff. The pencil made a dry, reassuring sound.

At eleven, Daniel called.

"Are you doing the grocery list?" he asked without greeting.

Mara looked at the blank page in front of her. "No."

"Leo is coming for dinner. I thought we'd do the roast."

"You thought I would do the roast."

He exhaled. Street traffic whispered past the window. "Mara, please don't make tonight another statement."

"It isn't. I have a planning meeting at the arts center."

"On Sunday?"

She almost laughed. "Yes. People have plans on Sunday."

There was a pause long enough for her to hear what he had never noticed: he did not know where the roasting pan was, how long the potatoes took, or that Leo disliked rosemary. None of those things had been kept from him. They had simply been left to her.

"Could you at least tell me what to buy?" he asked.

"No."

His silence was sharper this time. "You're being unfair."

"I have been fair for twenty-two years." Mara closed the sketchbook. "I will see Leo another day."

She paid at the counter before he could call back. Outside, she passed the grocery store without going in. The unfilled car boot felt unfamiliar, almost reckless, and then quietly like freedom.

At the arts center, the director spread plans for a neighborhood mural across a paint-splattered table. Mara listened while volunteers argued about color and accessibility. An architect named Owen Park asked whether the east wall got enough afternoon light for the design she had once submitted, years ago, then withdrawn when Daniel's job moved them across town.

"I don't know," Mara said.

"We could go look," Owen replied. He did not ask why she had stopped drawing.

When Mara returned home after dark, the kitchen smelled of smoke. Daniel stood at the sink scraping blackened glaze from a roasting pan.

"Leo ordered pizza," he said.

"I hope you ate."

He stared at her, waiting for irritation, guilt, a way back into their usual choreography.

Mara hung up her coat. "I did."