“I’m clearing things out.”
“You mailed me only photos of us.”
“They’re yours too.”
“You kept copies?”
Silence.
“Rebecca.”
“What?”
“Why these?”
“I thought you might want them.”
“You’re divorcing me.”
“That doesn’t erase eleven years.”
No.
It didn’t.
That was almost exactly what I had been telling myself.
“Stop sending things.”
A pause.
“Fine.”
“I mean it.”
“You don’t need to talk to me like I’m dangerous.”
I froze.
I had not used that word.
“I didn’t.”
“You’re acting like I’m bothering you.”
“You are.”
That hurt her.
I heard it.
And for a moment, guilt returned.
Old reflex.
Rebecca upset.
Owen fixes.
I closed my eyes.
“Please contact me through the attorneys unless it’s necessary.”
Her voice changed.
Cooler.
“You really can just turn it off.”
“What?”
“Fourteen years.”
“I didn’t turn anything off.”
“You left in ten minutes.”
“You told me you didn’t love me.”
“You didn’t even fight.”
I stared at the wall.
There it was.
Something I would understand only later.
“You wanted me to fight?”
“I wanted you to care.”
“I did care.”
“You packed.”
“What should I have done?”
“I don’t know.”
I laughed once.
“Rebecca, you keep saying things and then getting angry because I believe them.”
She hung up.
That sentence became important.
Three nights later, I saw the gray sedan.
It was parked across from Whitaker Print & Copy.
9:20 p.m.
Main Street was nearly empty.
I had gone downstairs because George called to tell me a package had been left inside the shop.
When I stepped outside, I noticed the car.
Gray Lexus sedan.
Rebecca drove a gray Lexus.
Same approximate year.
Same wheels.
Too far away to see the plate.
I stopped.
The car’s lights came on.
It pulled away.
Fast enough to seem deliberate.
I walked into George’s shop.
He looked at me.
“You see a ghost?”
“Maybe my wife.”
“The one you left?”
“She left me.”
“You’re the one living over my print shop.”
“Good point.”
I looked through the window.
The street was empty.
George studied me.
“She know you’re here?”
“I don’t know.”
“That sounds like a bad answer.”
“I know.”
“Want coffee?”
“At nine thirty?”
“I’m seventy-two. Time means nothing.”
We drank terrible coffee behind the counter.
I told myself the car could have belonged to anybody.
The next morning, I shaved.
That part still feels strangely important.
I had grown a beard over the previous four months.
Not intentionally.
Rebecca liked it.
She said it made me look less like “a suburban handyman.”
In Riverside, the beard started bothering me.
Maybe because it belonged to the version of myself who had lived in the house.
Maybe because I simply wanted a change.
I stood in the small bathroom with clippers.
Then a razor.
When I finished, I barely recognized myself.