He will spend his fifties paying for the four years he spent running a company like a personal account.

Part Thirteen: Everybody Else

I found out what had happened on the lawn on the Sunday morning, at eight forty, from my aunt.

I had spent Saturday not thinking about Phoenix, which is a thing I had decided to do on the Friday and which I managed for about six hours.

I went to the farmers’ market.

I read.

At around four in the afternoon — the exact hour, as it turned out — I put my phone in a drawer in the kitchen and left it there until the following morning, which is a thing I had never done in eleven years of being married to a man who ran a company.

When I took it out on Sunday there were fourteen missed calls, nine from my aunt.