They collected Amara from the backyard. Simone locked the pale blue house and handed Nia the spare key without ceremony. "I'll be at the closing tomorrow at one-thirty," Simone said. "If you want me there earlier to finish the last boxes, text me. If you want me nowhere near you, I will understand that too."
Nia closed her fingers around the key. It was lighter than it should have been. "Come at nine," she said. "We finish together. Then you and I are going to have a conversation without Marcus in the room."
Simone's eyebrows lifted slightly. "All right."
On the drive back, Amara fell asleep strapped into her booster, mouth open, one hand curled around the stuffed elephant she had insisted on bringing. Marcus drove the long way, through streets lined with jacarandas that had already dropped their purple for the year. Nia watched the houses grow larger as they approached their neighborhood, the lawns more deliberate, the cars in the driveways a quieter kind of wealth. She wondered how many of those houses held spreadsheets and deleted texts and marriages performing normalcy for someone on the other end of a phone.
When they pulled into their driveway, the garage door rose and Nia felt a foolish sting at the sight of the empty bay where Marcus's second car used to sit. Sold. Converted into months. Converted into the fiction of fine.
Inside, the boxes looked different now that she knew their purpose. Not betrayal exactly. Inventory. A life being folded into cardboard with as much dignity as cardboard allowed.