“Claire, please, just give me five minutes,” he said, holding his hands out, palms up.

I stopped near the drinking fountain and turned around, twisting my grandmother’s silver ring around my thumb.

“There’s nothing left for us to talk about, Mark.”

“She left me,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at the empty waiting room chairs.

“Vanessa packed her bags the minute your lawyer showed us those bank audit sheets.”

“That was her choice,” I said.

“She took her car and drove back to her sister’s house in Columbus,” he said, tugging at his collar with a quick, nervous jerk.