That charges by the hour.

At 12:36 on a Tuesday.

Here is what I did not do: I did not cry, and I did not call him.

I closed the lid.

I folded the receipt back along its own creases and put it in the front pocket of my jeans, and I went into the kitchen where my mother-in-law was browning onions in my good pan.

Wendy had a key and used it about three times a week, which had been a source of friction between us for the first two years of my marriage and had, at some point around the time my son was born, quietly stopped being one.