Several of them set down their champagne.

And then, quietly, in ones and twos, they began to gather their coats and move toward the door, abandoning the party, abandoning Fiona on her jubilee, abandoning Julian to what he had earned.

Chapter 16 — I Packed Yours Instead

The officers began, gently but without any possibility of argument, to guide Julian and his weeping mother out of the condominium and into the hallway, to spend their allotted fifteen minutes gathering what was theirs.

I walked with them as far as the open front door.

And there, as they were led out of the home I had paid for and would now keep, I said to my husband the only thing I had left to say to him.