It filled me.

I walked out of Coretta’s office lighter than I had walked anywhere in years, a dying woman with almost no money left, rich past anything I had ever been while I still had the house and the marriage and the ring.

Chapter 9 — Gregor Comes Home

I was not there when Gregor came home, so I have this part from Marva, and from the lawyer, and from the one conversation Gregor and I would eventually have, and I will tell it plainly, without decoration, because it does not need any.

He was discharged after his own recovery, expecting, I think, that I would be waiting the way I had always waited, and instead he found the Brookline house sold, a stranger’s name on the deed, his belongings boxed and in a storage unit whose key and address my lawyer had sent him, along with a single letter noting that the marital home had been the sole property of Henrietta Tennant and had been lawfully disposed of.

There was no fire.