So had Patty, Denise, and the paperwork that proved I’d kept the house.

But the real surprise had taken longer to understand.

I hadn’t been waiting for him to come home.

I had been learning how to live there myself.

Before the divorce hearing, I took a Saturday morning to sort the linen closet.

It was the last place in the house where Roger’s habits still directed my hands.

He liked the bath towels folded in thirds, with the seams facing the wall.

I could never remember which direction mattered, and he would redo them without speaking.