He backed two quick steps toward the elevator button, refusing to meet my eyes as the green light blinked overhead.

I assumed he was just scared to death of his mother catching the two of us on the same floor, the same way he’d been all through our three years of marriage.

The brass elevator doors slid open on the eighth floor into the lobby of Bellamy and Associates.

Yellow pine pollen coated the outside ledge of the tall window that looked down on Trade Street, giving the gray carpet a dull golden cast.

Patricia sat on a navy leather sofa with her knees angled toward the wall.