me had believed the rest of my life would remain recognizable.
Then David changed the locks.
I discovered it on a Wednesday afternoon.
I had taken Fiona to my sister-in-law’s apartment for a few hours because David said he needed “space to think.”
Those were his exact words.
He had been sleeping in the guest room for almost a month by then.
He had also been coming home later and later, taking calls outside, turning his phone facedown whenever I entered the room, and insisting that the woman from his office whose name kept appearing on his screen was “just part of the team.”
I had spent too much time pretending not to notice things because I was terrified of what noticing them would require me to do.
That Wednesday, I drove home around four.
My key would not turn.
At first, I thought I had the wrong key.
I
actually stood on the front step with Fiona beside me and tried it three times.
Then I noticed the new deadbolt.
A contractor’s cardboard box was still sitting beside the recycling bin.
I called David.
He answered after the fifth ring.
“You changed the locks?”
There was a pause.
Not surprise.
Not confusion.
Just a pause.
“I told you we needed space.”
“This is my house too.”
“Blaire, don’t make a scene.”
I remember looking down at Fiona.
She was drawing circles on the sidewalk with the toe of her sneaker.
“I’m standing outside my own front door with our daughter.”
“You can stay somewhere else tonight.”
“Where?”
“You have friends.”
I said nothing.
David sighed as though I were inconveniencing him.
Then he said, “Your suitcases are in the garage.”
They were not in the garage.
They were beside the garage.
Two of them.
My clothes had been stuffed
