It started on a Thursday, a quarter past four. I'd scrubbed the kitchen down to the bare linoleum and dumped the bucket in the toilet. In the hallway I passed the mirror I'd bought at a flea market on Route 9 back in 2003. A woman stood in it wearing a faded sweatshirt that said "Ocean City Boardwalk." Gray roots, wet patches on her knees, circles under her eyes. Next to the mirror hung a photo from 1999: a bride with a braid, a ruffled dress, a bouquet of freesias. Same woman. No, not the same woman at all.
Kevin got home after seven. He tossed his keys on the shelf by the door, next to the cracked pot with the fern in it. Didn't take off his boots. Clumps of mud from the parking lot crumbled off onto the mat.
"Dinner ready?"
I was standing in front of him in the navy dress, the one from 2010, the only one that still zipped without me holding my breath. He didn't notice.
"Kevin, maybe we could go out Saturday. Dinner somewhere nice. We used to want to."
He didn't look up from his phone.
"Saturday morning I'm driving to Harrisburg for the trailer inspection. Then the shop. By evening I just want peace and quiet, not sitting with you in some restaurant."
"Friday, then. Or Sunday."
"Ellen, don't make a scene. You, in a restaurant? I'd be embarrassed to show you off to anybody decent. Look in the mirror. You look like a cleaning lady who wandered into the wrong building."
He laughed, short and dry. Didn't wait for an answer. Walked into the living room and turned on the TV. Held the remote like proof the conversation was over.
In the kitchen I poured yesterday's cold coffee down the drain. Grounds stuck to the strainer. Two stuffed cabbage rolls sat under plastic wrap on a plate. I didn't touch them. I got my phone and called Diane, my older sister.
"Can I come stay with you for a few days?"
"Did something happen?"
"I need to think. That's all."
"Come on over. Just watch out, gas prices went up again on Route 30."
I packed a small wheeled suitcase that had been squeaking like an old trolley car for a year. In the closet, behind the box of Christmas ornaments, sat a blue folder. I opened it. A bank statement from Wells Fargo, opened three weeks earlier. A wire from the company account: $42,000. Memo line: "deposit on new rig." Except nobody at the company was buying anything. Kevin had spent the last year saying the lease payments didn't add up. I put the folder in the suitcase, tucked between sweaters.
Out on the landing, Mrs. Kowalczyk's dachshund started barking on the second floor. As I got into the cab, she leaned over the railing and called down.
"Ellen, does Kevin know?"
"No. And he doesn't need to."
The driver had the oldies station on. A Fleetwood Mac song played the whole way to my sister's place in Bethlehem. I paid cash — twenty-eight dollars plus tip — and took the receipt, though I couldn't say why.
Diane opened the door in jeans, paintbrush in hand. Her place smelled like wall paint and cinnamon. She set a mug of lemon tea in front of me, and I laid the blue folder on the table. She flipped through the numbers, closed it.
"How much has he stolen from you over the years?"
I didn't answer. It was never just about the money.
Friday night I lay on the pull-out couch counting the trains passing behind her building. Four went by before I fell asleep.
Monday. The lawyer, a woman named Patricia Malone with an office on Main Street, went through the documents. She said that since I owned half the business, I could sell my share, as long as it was done properly, through an attorney and notarized. I didn't yell. Didn't cry. On a notepad I wrote: "$54,000, sell to Russo." Marco Russo ran a rival trucking company. Kevin used to call him a crook. Now Marco was going to buy my half.
Tuesday, ten a.m., I sat in a law office on Chestnut Street. A Christmas cactus on the desk had bloomed early, in November. Russo wore a jacket with sleeves too short for his arms. He set his phone, screen cracked, on the table. I signed four documents. The attorney read through the terms while all I could hear was someone typing in the next room.
The money hit my account at Wells Fargo at 11:47 a.m. I printed the confirmation and slid it into the blue folder.
Wednesday morning I called a locksmith. The house was mine — my mother had signed it over to me in 2005, before her chemo started. Kevin never once put money toward the mortgage, just said, "that's what you're for." The locksmith, in a gray jacket with "AAA Lock & Key" stitched on the back, swapped out the deadbolt cylinder in forty minutes. I paid $95 and took the receipt. Then I packed his things: two suitcases, a duffel bag, a box that used to hold a TV, now full of cables, eight pairs of shoes. I set it all outside on the welcome mat.
In the mailbox I left a copy of the sale agreement and a note: "Your key doesn't work anymore. Your things are on the porch."
He showed up at 5:05. I heard his key grinding in the new lock. Three times. Then the doorbell. I opened the door on the chain. Kevin stood there with the key between his fingers, phone in his other hand.
"Ellen, you changed the locks? What is this?"
I passed the blue folder through the gap.
"Read it. Then call your accountant."
He opened it, read for a moment. Folded the pages in half.
"You sold your shares?"
"My shares."
"Without asking me?"
"I needed your permission for something else. Never got it. Not once in twenty-four years."
He raised his voice, but I stopped listening. I shut the door. He heard the deadbolt click into place. He kicked the box of shoes, and two floors down Mrs. Kowalczyk's dachshund started barking again. Then footsteps going down the stairs, fading out.
I went back to the kitchen. Made fresh coffee, set the mug next to the blue folder. Texted my daughter: "You can come by Saturday, it'll be quiet here." Sent it. On the windowsill sat the locksmith's receipt for $95. He never paid me back for it. That was never the point.
