Afterward he asked where I’d like to go.

I looked at the bag of belongings on my lap.

I had packed a sweater, medicines, family photographs, and my worn little address book.

Not even a tenth of what I’d brought into that house.

“I don’t want to go back tonight.”

“Then you don’t have to.”

He drove me to a quiet guest suite above his family’s garage.

It had a window that opened, a little kitchenette, and a clean quilt folded at the foot of the bed.