My stomach drops. “Sage?”
“Yeah. And Ethan?” He shakes his head. “She’s thirty-eight. Birthdate’s right there. And half that resume doesn’t add up.”
I run a hand down my face. “I know. Don’t hire her.”
“I’m not,” he says quickly. “Too messy. Too close. And I don’t want money going sideways.”
“Thank you.”
He nods. Then, lighter, “I’m asking Melissa to move in with me over the holidays.”
“After everything?” I say.
“After everything,” he replies. “9/11 flipped the script. I don’t wanna wait.”
I get that. More than I want to.
We sit there until the cold seeps through our bones and the stars sharpen overhead.
For the first time in weeks, I breathe all the way out.
My apartment is quiet in a way that feels wrong.
Not peaceful.
Vacant.
Her shampoo’s still in the shower—citrus and something floral I can’t name. Her coffee mug sits in the sink. The one she claimed immediately. “This one’s mine,” she’d said, like it was a joke.
I don’t wash the sheets.
I stand there longer than I should, staring at them like they might explain something.
In the kitchen, her fingerprints are everywhere. Yahoo recipes taped to the fridge. Notes in her handwriting. New cutlery she insisted we needed. A second deck chair—for guests, she’d said, smiling like she already knew she’d won.
I finally understand something ugly:
The silence is good.
But the absence is loud.
I start leaving on weekends.
I wedge a paperclip in the doorframe before I go—something small, something only I’d notice if it moved. It makes me feel stupid and smart at the same time.
I drive north.
My mother opens the door in her robe, hair pinned up, surprise flashing across her face.
“Ethan?”
“Hey, Ma.”
She pulls me into a hug that lasts a second longer than usual. “You okay?”
“I will be.”
She doesn’t ask about Sage. She never does.
