The woman across our hall cornered me near the elevator: “Someone unlocks your place on Thursdays.” My husband made me feel stupid for asking him. “Find something useful to worry about.” But when I saw who carried a key, I kept quiet and started putting together what he’d eventually open across the dinner table.
My son trusted that woman with his home, and I trusted my husband with mine.
Neither of us had asked who else could get inside.
By the elevator, though, I’d laughed at Janina.
“Somebody’s got the wrong floor,” I said.
She kept hold of my sleeve until I stopped smiling.
“Your door. After two. And whoever it is doesn’t knock.”
We’d rented that apartment in Akron for thirteen years.
A maintenance worker had misplaced our spare during a repair, so we’d replaced the cylinder afterward.
Simon and I carried the current keys.
That was the arrangement.
Janina pressed the elevator button again, although it was already lit.
“Have you actually seen somebody go in?” I said.
“Enough Thursdays that I started checking the day.”
The doors opened, and she let go.
I spent that morning staring at the same unfinished work on my screen.
Whenever somebody passed my desk, I covered my phone as though I’d been caught doing something.
By lunch, I’d typed a message to Simon and erased it.
I wanted his face.
That evening, he pushed reheated rice around his plate while I repeated Janina’s question.
His spoon kept moving.
“Find something useful to worry about, Marisa.”
“She said somebody had a key.”
“She also thinks the delivery people steal her circulars.”
He took another mouthful before I could answer.
Then he asked whether I’d paid the electricity bill.
He’d skipped the part where a person normally asked WHO.
I said the bill was paid.
He held out his empty plate.
The next morning, I bought an entry camera small enough to sit beside a photograph.
The photograph was an old selfie of Casey and me, cheek against cheek, both smiling into the phone.
He’d been eight; I’d been thirty-four.
His school had called that day because he’d forgotten his lunch, and he’d insisted the photograph would prove he’d thanked me.
I moved its frame slightly to make room.
Then I pointed the camera toward our entrance and checked the view.
Only the hall was visible.
I told myself that was enough.
By Thursday, I’d nearly persuaded myself to put the thing away.
At work, I checked its app between calls and again while somebody explained changes to the staff rota.
At 2:26, a notification covered my screen.
I took my phone into the stairwell.
The person entering didn’t hesitate over the key or push the wrong way against the door.
She stepped inside and shut it behind her.
Breanna.
My son’s wife.
Her hair was clipped back, and she still wore the coat she’d worn to our last dinner.
She passed the camera without turning her head.
Then she disappeared down the hall toward our bedroom.
Seventy seconds later, she returned with her hands rubbing together.
She pulled the door closed gently.
I played it again until my phone asked whether I wanted to save the clip.
At dinner, Simon complained about a delivery being delayed.
I asked whether it had eventually arrived.
I even passed him the salt.
Before daylight, I opened our bedside cabinet and lifted the things stacked inside.
A folded cream card sat beneath Simon’s reading glasses.
The fold was pressed so firmly that the paper wouldn’t lie flat.
I photographed the outside and put it back exactly as I’d found it.
I wanted him to explain it.
When I checked again after breakfast, the card had GONE.
“Did you take something from the cabinet?” I said.
“Why would I?”
“Some paper.”
“Probably one of your lists.”
His glasses were on his face.
I left the cupboard open until he told me it looked untidy.
The following Thursday, I said I’d arranged to work from home.
Simon stopped with his coat halfway onto his shoulder.
“All day?”
“That’s usually what that means.”
He pulled the coat on.
Once he’d left, I sat behind our bedroom door with my phone ready to record.
The gap was narrow, but I could see the cabinet.
At 2:23, metal scraped inside the entrance lock.
I pressed record too hard and almost dropped the phone.
Breanna’s steps came straight down the hall.
She opened our bedroom door farther, and its edge pushed against my slipper.
I pulled my foot back.
She never turned.
The cabinet opened.
A photograph slid beneath the glasses case, and then she helped herself to my hand cream.
I heard the cap click before she left.
My knees hurt when I stood.
In the photograph, Simon and Breanna stood beside a holiday rental we’d used five years earlier.
Casey had taken pictures that afternoon; I remembered him trying to get everybody outside before lunch.
Simon had his fingers hooked through the back of her belt.
Her face was turned toward his.
On the reverse, somebody had written, “Still our little habit.”
I kept turning it over.
The front gave me something to argue with; the writing sent me back again.
I placed it where she’d left it and photographed the cabinet before closing it.
Then I called Divya.
She’d spent nineteen years helping couples settle arrangements after separation.
“Tell me you haven’t asked him yet,” she said.
“I asked about the card.”
“What did he say?”
“That it was mine.”
“Save his answer with the dates.”
I held the phone against my ear while she waited.
“Do I tell Casey?”
“Get your copies safe before you decide anything else.”
So I saved EVERYTHING.
I kept a private cloud copy and another on a memory card, then separated the money I could move from my own account.
I had the lock replaced.
Simon tried his key while I was inside and knocked harder when it failed.
“Since when?”
“This afternoon. The manager wanted it done.”
He took the replacement from me without asking to see a notice.
That evening, Breanna sent Casey hearts while we ate together.
His phone lit beside his plate.
He smiled at her.
I kept chewing until the food would go down.
For a month, I recorded dates and kept my answers short.
Simon began asking whether I was tired.
“Do you want me to leave you alone?” he said.
“Finish telling me about your day.”
He did.
Then Breanna invited us over for dinner.
“Nothing special,” her message said. “Come hungry.”
I answered before Simon could suggest another date.
By then, the recordings and photographs were arranged in a private album.
Its link sat in a message I hadn’t sent.
Breanna opened the door with her sleeves pushed up and the smell of my hand cream on her hands.
She touched my arm.
“You’re early.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Of course not.”
Casey brought cider, and Simon took the chair beside mine.
We ate while Breanna asked about our week.
I let Simon answer.
When she brought the pear cake, I reached beneath the table for my phone.
My thumb slipped past the message before I found it again.
Then I pressed SEND.
Simon’s pocket sounded.
“There’s something for you,” I said.
“It can wait.”
“OPEN IT NOW.”
He kept his smile while taking out the phone.
Then the smile stopped.
Breanna reached toward his screen before pulling her hand back.
Casey pushed his plate away.
“Why’s our hallway on your phone?”
Simon enlarged the first image.
Breanna’s cup tipped against its saucer, and she caught it with both hands.
I laid my napkin beside the untouched cake and stood.
At the doorway, Simon said a name.
I stopped with my fingers around the handle.
He hadn’t said mine.
Casey’s chair
“Casey.”
Simon said it again.
“Come here. Your mother won’t listen to me.”
I took my hand off the door.
There it was. My husband had something to explain, and he’d chosen our son to explain me.
Casey stayed beside his plate.
“What am I looking at?”
“Your wife coming into our apartment,” I said. “With a key.”
Simon pulled Casey’s chair around the corner of the table, away from the place where I’d been sitting.
“Sit down, son. Let’s get this straight before anybody starts making accusations.”
I put my bag on the floor.
I wanted to leave so badly that the strap slipped through my fingers. I’d imagined the walk downstairs, air against my face, a car door I could close without somebody asking me what was wrong.
But Casey was looking at Simon.
And his father had turned the phone facedown.
Breanna stood with the cake knife in her hand.
“Could we put that away?” I said.
She looked at the knife, then set it beside the cake. Nobody needed a weapon. We were managing very well with the people provided.
“Mom,” Casey said. “You said our hallway.”
“I meant the apartment. The one you call home when you ask whether we’re in.”
He nodded once. His mouth stayed open for a second after.
Simon patted the chair he’d moved.
“Come on. There’s a reasonable explanation.”
“Then give it standing up,” I said.
He pulled his hand off the chair.
For the first time that evening, Breanna looked at me without a smile. Her fingers went to the pocket of the cardigan hanging over her chair.
Casey turned his father’s phone over.
The image filled the screen again.
“Why does my wife have a key to your bedroom?”
The photograph beside the camera
“The apartment,” Simon said. “Nobody has a key to a bedroom.”
Casey looked up.
I almost laughed. Thirty years together, and Simon could still find a technical correction while the roof came off.
Breanna sat down. She folded the cardigan into her lap.
“Your mother makes it sound like I broke in.”
“You used a key,” I said.
“Exactly.”
Casey touched the screen. In the corner of the recording, beside the doorway, was the back of the framed picture of us.
“Is that the lunch picture?”
“Yes.”
He enlarged the image until the frame became a blur, then pulled it back.
That morning, years before, he’d wanted proof that he’d thanked me. He’d pressed his cheek against mine so hard my glasses went crooked. After the photograph, he ran toward school, then ran back because I’d still been holding the lunch.
The frame in the recording leaned toward the camera.
“Mom keeps that right by the door,” Casey said to Breanna.
“I know where she keeps it.”
She said it too quickly.
Simon reached for the cider. Casey put a hand over his glass.
“Why were you going there?”
“To leave something for your father.”
“Why couldn’t you give it to him here?”
“Because it was personal,” she said.
Her head turned toward Simon.
He set the bottle down without pouring.
“Marisa, sit. Please. You’re making everybody uncomfortable.”
I sat in my original chair. He’d moved our son’s, not mine.
On the night I changed the cylinder, Simon stood in our hall trying his old key twice before knocking. The new keys had round heads instead of square ones. He complained that he’d have to learn which was which by touch. I told him a man who could tell four football commentators apart with his eyes closed would survive.
Now his keys lay beside his plate.
I’d paid $186.40 for that replacement. The receipt was still on my phone.
“That lock cost me a hundred and eighty-six dollars and forty cents,” I said.
Simon looked at Casey.
“Now we’re discussing household expenses.”
“We’re discussing who can open my door.”
“I’ve never heard you call it only your door before.”
Breanna rubbed her hands together. The cream had left a mark on the glass she’d held.
Casey slid the phone toward her.
“Play it.”
She didn’t touch it.
“Breanna.”
“There’s nothing on there you need to see.”
He pressed the screen himself.
Her recorded footsteps came out of his father’s phone.
Seventy seconds
We sat through the whole visit.
Seventy seconds can be a long time when someone beside you is waiting for it to end. Simon lifted his glass, put it down, then straightened his knife against his fork.
Breanna kept both hands on the cardigan.
Casey replayed the part where she went down the hall.
“That’s toward their bedroom.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Why?”
“I told you. I was leaving something.”
“At two in the afternoon when neither of them was home?”
Simon reached across the table.
“Give me that.”
Casey moved Simon’s phone out of his reach.
It was such a small movement. The phone traveled six inches. Simon’s hand stayed out there as if the rest of his son hadn’t received instructions.
“You’re getting upset over a visit,” Simon said.
Casey pushed the chair back.
“Then why are both of you so afraid of me seeing it?”
I opened the album on my phone and set it in front of him.
The holiday photograph came next.
Casey stared at it.
He brought the phone closer, then held it away again. His finger covered the edge of the house where we’d stayed.
“I took this.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Mom was inside. Getting lunch.”
I remembered the lunch. There had been too many people trying to open the refrigerator while I stood in front of it. I’d sent everybody outside.
Breanna reached across the table toward Casey’s wrist.
He put both hands beneath the table.
“Look at me,” she said.
He kept looking at the photograph.
“That was five years ago. You can’t take one picture and decide what our whole marriage was.”
“What’s he doing with your belt?”
“We’d been drinking.”
“It was before lunch.”
“People drink on holiday, Casey.”
Simon leaned forward.
“It was inappropriate. I’ll give you that.”
I’ll give you that. As if Casey had made a respectable offer for a secondhand lawn mower.
I put my finger on the screen and moved to the photograph’s reverse.
“Still our little habit.”
Casey read it without moving his lips.
Breanna pulled the cardigan higher in her lap.
“That’s private.”
“So was my bedroom,” I said.
Simon stood.
“Enough.”
His chair hit the wall. Breanna jumped, and Casey stood too.
For a moment, the three of them were upright while I sat beneath their elbows. I wanted to pull my phone back and put it away. My son had gone pale. I’d made the thing I feared happen in front of me.
But Simon was reaching for it again.
I put my palm over the screen.
“You can ask me for it.”
“Will you stop treating me like a criminal?”
“Will you stop taking things out of my hands?”
Casey turned to him.
“Were you sleeping with my wife?”
Simon looked at Breanna.
She looked at him.
My son had to ask twice.
Five years on a screen
“Yes,” Simon said.
Breanna shut her eyes.
Casey sat down so hard the chair scraped backward. He caught the table with both hands and stayed there.
I reached for his shoulder.
He pulled away.
“Don’t.”
Simon started talking before I could lower my hand.
“It ended. Years ago. It was a terrible mistake, and we dealt with it. We didn’t tell you because we knew what it would do.”
Casey looked from him to Breanna.
“Both of you?”
“Yes,” she said.
She had a napkin pressed between her hands. She kept folding the same corner.
“And the visits?” I said.
“She wanted to talk about it,” Simon said. “About whether we should tell you. I told her it would destroy the family for no reason.”
“She left a photograph in your cabinet.”
“Because I wouldn’t discuss it.”
Breanna turned toward him.
He spoke over her.
“That’s why I didn’t tell you about the key. I was trying to handle it without putting this on Casey.”
Our son made a sound that stopped him.
Casey’s face had folded against his hands. His shoulders moved once, then again.
I got up.
“Casey.”
“How long have you known?”
I stayed beside my chair.
“About a month.”
He took his hands away.
“A month?”
“I needed copies. I needed to know what I was looking at.”
“You knew what you were seeing.”
“Not at first.”
“But then you did.”
“Yes.”
He pushed my phone across the table. It struck the cake plate.
“You came here. You ate dinner.”
I couldn’t look at the cake. Breanna had cut it into four pieces before any of this started. Four generous slices. She’d planned for all of us to stay.
“I didn’t know how to tell you,” I said.
“So you told Dad first?”
“I sent it to him here because I wanted you to hear his answer.”
“You wanted me to see his face.”
I couldn’t deny that.
Simon’s hand came down on Casey’s shoulder.
“Your mother was hurt. She wanted to hurt somebody back.”
Casey didn’t pull away from him.
That was the part that got me. My hand had been refused. Simon’s stayed.
I wanted to say his father knew exactly where to put it. I wanted to drag the chair back beside mine and make my son eight again, an age when bringing his lunch could fix the whole day.
He was thirty-one. There wasn’t anything I could carry through a school door for this.
“I should have told you alone,” I said.
“You let me sit with you while she sent me messages.”
“Yes.”
“I showed you that one. About dinner.”
“Yes.”
Breanna began to cry.
Casey looked at her, then at me.
“I don’t even know which part of tonight you planned.”
Simon drew out the chair beside him.
“Sit here, son. You don’t have to make decisions tonight.”
This time Casey moved.
The empty chair beside me still held the shape of a place I’d expected my son to take.
I picked up my phone.
Casey said, “Don’t send anything else.”
“I haven’t sent it to anyone outside this room.”
“Keep it that way.”
Simon sat beside him and pulled the cake plate away.
He was very good at clearing things out of sight.
The cardigan in her lap
Simon left the cake on the counter and came back.
“We need to slow down,” he said. “Marisa, you can be angry with me. But this is their home. Their marriage.”
I looked at Breanna.
She’d stopped crying. Her eyes stayed on Simon while he sat.
“Whatever happened between us,” he said to Casey, “it shouldn’t cost you your wife.”
“Whatever happened?” Casey said.
“I’ve told you what happened.”
“No, you’ve told me it ended.”
“It did.”
“When?”
“A long time ago.”
“Then pick a year.”
Simon rubbed his forehead.
“You want dates? Is that going to make you feel better?”
Casey put both feet on the floor.
Breanna reached for him again, slower this time.
He let her touch his sleeve.
“I was going to tell you,” she said.
Simon turned toward her.
She withdrew her hand.
“Then why leave him pictures?” Casey said. “Why go into their bedroom? Why not come home and tell me?”
“I was trying to get him to talk.”
“With my mother’s hand cream?”
That landed harder than I’d expected.
Breanna looked down at her hands.
“That has nothing to do with it.”
“You helped yourself,” I said.
“I’m sorry about the cream, Marisa.”
I nearly thanked her. Habit is a humiliating thing. A woman can be sitting across from someone who has slept with her husband and still have “that’s all right” waiting behind her teeth.
I kept it there.
Simon leaned toward Casey.
“Listen to me. Your mother and I have been married a long time. People do things they’re ashamed of. You can spend the rest of your life punishing them, or you can try to save something.”
Casey stared at the place where his cake had been.
“Did you love her?”
Breanna looked up.
Simon took too long.
“It wasn’t like that.”
She pulled the cardigan against her stomach.
“Don’t do that,” she said.
“I’m trying to explain.”
“Then explain what happened.”
He lowered his head toward her across the table.
“I am.”
She pressed her mouth shut.
I wanted to point to that exchange and make Casey hold it still. But he was looking at my phone.
“Can I have that?”
I slid it across.
He went through the photographs again. The cabinet. The folded card. His wife walking toward my bedroom.
“I never opened the card,” I said. “I don’t know what was inside.”
Simon immediately lifted a hand.
“Exactly. There are things in there she doesn’t even understand.”
Casey stopped moving his thumb.
“Mom, please.”
I sat back.
He set the phone down.
“I can’t do this with everybody looking at me.”
“We can go outside,” I said.
“No.”
Simon put his palm on Casey’s shoulder again.
Breanna moved her chair nearer.
My son had his father on one side and his wife on the other. Both of them waiting for me to leave.
“Take your phone,” Casey said. “Go home, Mom.”
The words hit somewhere low in my stomach.
I stood. My knees hurt, just as they had behind the bedroom door.
Simon nodded toward my bag.
“I’ll come after you.”
“No,” I said.
“Don’t start that now.”
I lifted the strap over my shoulder.
Breanna’s hand slipped into the cardigan pocket. Metal clicked against the tabletop.
I stopped beside her chair.
“Before I go, I want my key.”
The round head
Breanna kept her hand in the pocket.
“I don’t have it with me.”
Simon sat back.
“Give her the key, Breanna. Let’s get past this.”
Her face turned toward him.
“Simon.”
“She changed the cylinder anyway. It won’t do her any good.”
I put my bag down again.
“Then there’s no point keeping it.”
Casey looked at her pocket.
“Do you have it?”
“It’s just my keys.”
“Put them on the table.”
She pulled them out.
The ring held her car key and the key to their home. Behind those was one with a round head.
I took my own keys from my bag.
For a second, I couldn’t separate the apartment key from the ring. My thumbnail slipped twice. Simon started to speak.
“Wait,” I said.
I laid mine beside hers.
The heads matched. So did the teeth.
Casey leaned forward.
“When did you change your lock?”
“A month ago. After I took these recordings.”
Simon reached toward the keys.
I put my hand over mine.
“The old keys were square,” I said.
Breanna stared at him.
“You said she knew.”
Nobody moved.
“You said she knew about us,” she said. “You said you were sorting things out.”
Simon pushed his chair back.
“Don’t.”
“You told me the new key was because she’d lost hers.”
Casey stood.
The chair behind him fell onto its side.
Breanna flinched toward it, then stopped.
“Who gave you that key?” he said.
She kept looking at Simon.
“Your father.”
“When?”
“The Monday after they changed the cylinder.”
Simon lifted both hands.
“She needed to collect a few things. I didn’t want another scene.”
“What things?” I said.
He looked at me.
“From my bedroom,” I said. “What things?”
Breanna picked up her key ring, then put it down again.
“He told me Thursdays were still all right.”
Casey took his father’s hand off the back of his chair.
He didn’t shove it. He lifted it by the wrist and put it at Simon’s side.
“Don’t touch me.”
Simon looked at the phone. Then at the two keys.
The old photograph could be called a mistake. The visits could be called unfinished business.
This key was a month old.
And Breanna had it in her pocket tonight.
Four places at the table
Simon went around the fallen chair.
“Casey, listen. I didn’t want you finding out this way.”
“Which way did you want?”
“There isn’t a good way.”
“Then stop talking about the way.”
Breanna stood too.
“You told me you were leaving her.”
Simon turned on her.
“Do you really think this is helping?”
“What am I supposed to say?”
“You could stop making it worse.”
Casey bent down, set his chair upright, and moved it away from both of them.
Then he looked at me.
“Sit down, Mom.”
I sat.
My hands were shaking. I put them beneath the table because I didn’t want to give Simon another thing to discuss.
He pulled out his own chair but didn’t sit.
“I know you’re angry. I know I’ve let you down. But you’re throwing away years over something that got out of hand.”
“Five years,” Casey said.
“It wasn’t every day.”
Breanna made a noise through her nose, almost a laugh.
Simon faced her.
“Don’t you start. You came to my home.”
“You gave me the key.”
“You knew I was married.”
“So did you.”
Casey put a hand over his mouth.
I wanted to take him out of that room. Instead, I stayed in the chair he’d asked me to use.
Simon came toward me.
“Marisa. Look at me.”
I did.
“Whatever she thinks I promised, that’s not what I want. I want my wife. I want my family.”
Breanna sat down again.
Her knees struck the table. Cider moved inside the glasses.
“You said that wasn’t your home anymore,” she said.
Simon kept his eyes on me.
“We can leave now. We can talk somewhere else.”
“You can stay here,” I said.
“I’m not staying here.”
“You’re not coming home with me.”
His face changed.
“That’s my apartment too.”
“Then we’ll deal with that. Tonight, I’m asking you to stay somewhere else.”
He looked at Casey.
Our son folded his arms.
“You aren’t staying here,” he said.
Breanna put both hands against the table.
“Can everybody stop deciding things for one minute?”
Casey turned to her.
“You invited my parents to dinner.”
“I thought we could have a normal evening.”
“You sat me across from him.”
“We’ve had dinner before.”
“Yes,” he said. “We have.”
She began to cry again.
Simon reached for his phone.
“Please don’t do something you can’t take back,” he said to Casey. “You’re upset. Both of you are.”
My son picked up my phone.
“Send the album to me.”
Simon stepped forward.
“Why? You’ve seen it.”
“I want my own copy.”
“You don’t need to keep looking at it.”
“Give me your phone, Dad.”
Simon held it against his chest.
Casey stared at him.
“That’s what I thought.”
I sent the album to Casey. His phone sounded beside the plate.
He opened it, checked that the first recording played, then pocketed it.
Breanna reached for his hand.
“Can we talk alone?”
“You can say it here.”
“Please.”
“You’ve had five years of alone.”
She covered her face.
Simon stood behind his chair.
“So what happens now? We all walk out? Is that what you wanted, Marisa?”
I took Breanna’s key ring and slid the apartment key free.
The ring fought me. My thumbnail broke.
Casey held it while I worked the key off.
“I wanted to know who could get inside,” I said.
Simon put his keys on the table.
“Fine. Take mine too. If that makes you feel safe.”
I removed his apartment key.
He held his hand out for the rest.
I gave them back.
Casey looked at Breanna.
“I want you to stay somewhere else tonight.”
“This is my home.”
“I know. I’m asking you to leave for tonight. I can’t sleep beside you.”
She looked toward Simon.
He looked at his phone.
Breanna wiped her face with the napkin and stood.
“I’ll get a bag.”
Casey moved out of her way.
When her bedroom door closed, Simon said, “You’re making a mistake, son.”
Casey opened the front door.
“Go wait downstairs.”
The bag by their door
Breanna came back before Simon left.
Her bag caught on the side of the dining chair. She pulled it free, then stood beside the door Casey was holding.
“Will you call me tomorrow?”
“I don’t know.”
“Casey, I need you to say something.”
He looked at the bag.
“Leave your key on the table for tonight.”
She pulled her ring out again.
“I’ll need to come back.”
“We’ll arrange that.”
Simon moved toward the doorway.
Breanna stepped into his path.
“Are you going to take me?”
He stopped.
“I’m getting a hotel.”
“Then take me.”
He glanced at Casey, then at me.
“I need to speak to my wife.”
Breanna’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out at first.
Then she said, “Of course you do.”
She took the key to Casey’s home off her ring and put it beside the one from mine.
Her car key was all that remained.
She held it in her fist while she passed her husband.
Casey stepped back so she wouldn’t have to brush against him.
Simon stayed at the threshold.
“I’ll call you,” he said to me.
“Tomorrow. About collecting your things.”
“I’m not moving out.”
“Then tell me where you expect to sleep tonight.”
He looked past me toward the table.
The cake was still on the counter. My napkin lay beside the empty place. Both keys were in front of Casey.
“At the hotel,” Simon said.
“Bring a bag tomorrow.”
He left.
Casey closed the door and kept his palm against it.
I stood beside the table. I didn’t go toward him.
After a while, he turned.
“I shouldn’t have told you to go.”
“You needed room.”
“I was going to let him take you home.”
I started to answer, but he shook his head.
“He would’ve talked the whole way, wouldn’t he?”
“Probably.”
Casey sat on the floor with his back against the door.
I lowered myself beside him. My knees objected. They’d been asked to do rather a lot of family work lately.
“I’m sorry I waited,” I said.
He wiped his face with the heel of his hand.
“Don’t do that again.”
“I won’t.”
He leaned his head against my shoulder.
I kept my hands in my lap until he reached for one.
We sat together while his phone lit up on the table.
Neither of us got it.
Then Casey squeezed my fingers.
“Tomorrow, I’m coming with you.”
$186.40
On Sunday morning, Casey came to our apartment before Simon.
He lifted the childhood photograph off the hall shelf while I moved the entry camera to face the door again.
“My ears were enormous.”
“They still are.”
He turned the frame toward me.
“You could have told me in here.”
“I know.”
He put it back beside the camera.
When Simon knocked, Casey opened the door.
My husband carried an empty bag. He looked at our son first.
“You’re here.”
“Yes.”
“I thought your mother and I could have a private conversation.”
“I’m helping him carry things,” Casey said to me.
I nodded.
Simon stood in the doorway until our son stepped aside.
He stepped past Casey toward our room.
I stayed in the hall. Casey went with him.
Drawers opened. A hanger struck the wardrobe. Simon asked where a shirt was, and I nearly walked in to find it.
Casey found it first.
A few minutes later, Simon came out with the bag.
“The cabinet,” I said.
“What about it?”
“Your glasses. Whatever papers you’ve left in there. Take them.”
He went back.
When he returned, the bag was closed.
Casey carried it to the door.
Simon took out his phone.
“I’ve sent something toward the bills.”
“How much?”
“A hundred and eighty-six forty.”
The amount appeared on my screen.
$186.40. The lock he’d made useless by giving her another key.
I put the phone away.
“Thank you.”
He looked relieved by those two words.
“I’ll stay away for a few days. Give you some time.”
“This isn’t a few days.”
“Marisa.”
“I’ll arrange a time for the rest of your things. We can discuss the apartment after that.”
He looked at Casey.
“Could you give us a minute?”
Our son set the bag outside the door.
“I’ll be by the elevator.”
Simon waited until Casey stepped away.
“You don’t want to do this in front of him.”
“You did enough behind him.”
He pressed his lips together.
“I’ve apologized.”
“You told him it ended years ago.”
“I panicked.”
“And gave her the new key on a Monday.”
He looked down at the handle of his bag.
There was nothing else I needed him to admit.
I checked the bedroom after he stepped into the hall. His side of the cabinet was empty. The photograph and card were gone with him.
I shut the drawer.
At the front door, I took my keys from my bag. Simon moved aside while I locked it.
Casey waited by the elevator. He held the button when he saw me.
Simon put his hand out, short of touching my sleeve.
“After all these years, you owe me another chance.”
“You had a key.”
I walked past him with mine in my hand.
Send this to someone who’s ever been made to feel foolish for asking a sensible question.
For more family drama about being sidelined when you should have been celebrated, read the story of a sister who charged $5,200 for Dad’s retirement and the wedding invitation that didn’t add up. There’s also a father’s last-minute decision about who would walk his daughter down the aisle.
