a's

om door is s

e considers temporarily his, like he is leaving himself an

n and stand i

once found attractive and have spent the last six months finding quietly madd

what I have co

y mother and try not to think about the divorce or Talia's key or the three

opening

here searching through his things because I have always been the kind of woman who would

worked out great

Cufflinks. A spare charger. A hotel key card fro

drawer h

pper right corner. The kind of phone that exists for one reason and one rea

ck i

not

guest bed and think about th

s privacy? A person who takes the high road and

the m

act. Sav

o the very

ge is dated fou

before o

no idea,

can hear the smil

father's arrangement. Six mont

at line t

mo

er I made and every event I attended and every night I lay awake listening to him sleep down the hall, ev

nds s

ants to be put down, and I watch it happen from a slight distance, watch my own hands be

p scr

h se

ivorce this early looks uns

nother six months,

m sorry. It

ill just

se before

es

e came back

ia

h that fo

t sits differently from all the rest, somethin

n, Talia's message

About the Harrington account. About the Singapore

st

ed about the Har

ow what the Harr

lia reporting something I have apparently said or done. Observations made. Concerns noted

f it h

vations and talking to the other board wives about schools and dry cleaners and

t i

ull extent of

tan

m is to

mething I need to be out of, air I need to be somewhere else in, and I stand at the window with my back to the room and I keep reading because I ha

ilt an entirely different woman out of

nd noted it and never once come

window and I

o outside the glass, indifferent and bright, and I stand the

ove for a

ar the fr

s in the

ook

ding at the guest room window with his second phone in my hand and the color lea

at eac

ma.

hat was the plan. Befor

y it. He does n

one. "The Harrington account. The board wives. All of it.

e is its o

leave," I say. "I

e expl

genuinely do not have the capacity for y

m and hold t

akes

s not enti

door and stand on the other side of it wit

rea

n

u

een m

th an exit plan

he stayed angry enough at a woman who did not ex

d at t

not

onths and the phone in his unsteady hand, something else is sitting quietl

been sitting there

r is stopping at t

orehead agai

months, the one that arrives now not with weight but w

ht now, whatever those pharmacy tests ar

ver goin

ff from

ck to p

a swe

in the

ano