Chapter 10
“Was she calling you on my birthday?”
Nathan did not answer.
That was answer enough.
I looked down at my wrist.
I was still wearing the bracelet.
Without thinking, I unclasped it and set it on the table.
Laura watched.
“I’ll come by tomorrow for the rest of my things.”
“I can be there.”
“I’d rather you weren’t.”
“Claire, that’s my house too.”
“I know.”
“That sounded wrong.”
“It sounded accurate.”
“I mean I want to talk face-to-face.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Because I knew myself.
Because Nathan had spent eleven years learning how to soften me.
He knew when to lower his voice.
When to touch my elbow.
When to make me laugh in the middle of anger.
When to remind me of our first apartment or our wedding or the terrible used Honda we once drove to Florida.
Love leaves behind a map.
Even after betrayal, the other person remembers every entrance.
“I don’t trust myself around our history yet,” I said.
That was the most truthful thing I had told him.
He became quiet.
Finally, he said, “I love you.”
I closed my eyes.
Months earlier, those words would have been all I wanted.
Now they felt incomplete.
“You probably do.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means love didn’t stop you.”
He had no answer.
On Sunday morning, Nathan left the house.
Laura drove with me.
We borrowed her husband’s pickup truck for boxes.
The front door opened with my key exactly as it always had.
The entryway smelled like cedar from the candle I had lit Friday afternoon.
My shoes were still lined beneath the bench.
Nathan’s jacket hung on the hook.
The normality of it nearly broke me.
Laura touched my shoulder.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good. That would be weird.”
I laughed through sudden tears.
We spent four hours packing.
I took books.
Kitchen equipment that belonged to me before the marriage.
Half the towels.
My grandmother’s dishes.
Family photographs.
A blue ceramic bowl Nathan hated and my mother loved.
I left the expensive television.
The leather sectional.
The oversized dining table we bought because Nathan insisted we would entertain more.
I took the old yellow mixing bowl we used in our first apartment.
The one with a chip along the rim.
Nathan had once tried to throw it away.
I rescued it from the trash.
Laura held it up.
“This?”
“Yes.”
“It costs twelve dollars.”
“I know.”