She did not go downstairs immediately. She walked into the master bedroom.
Their bed was still made—Marcus's side neat, her side untouched for months, the decorative pillows arranged the way she liked them, as if he had been keeping a shrine to the possibility of her return. On her nightstand, the novel she had left half-finished waited with a bookmark at page 214. On his nightstand, nothing. No book. No water glass. Only a charging cable and a folded piece of paper that looked as if it had been taken out and put back many times.
Nia picked up the paper.
It was not a love letter. It was a printout of an email, dated four months earlier, from a human resources portal. Subject line: Final Separation Notice — Position Elimination.
Marcus Ellison. Effective immediately. Severance package details attached. Company property return checklist. COBRA information. The language of American professional endings, clean and bloodless.
Nia's hands began to shake.