“I can get you one.”
He shrugged.
Cherry went to the hall closet and got out his wool peacoat. She brought him the coat and the leash.
“Thanks.” Tom still didn’t look up. He clipped the lead to Stevie’s collar. “We’ll be back in an hour or so.”
“Long walk,” Cherry said.
“It’s a good day for one.” He clicked his tongue. “Come on, Stevie.”
Stevie followed him eagerly out the door and down the walk.
Cherry watched them for a minute. Until she started to cry. She closed the front door and leaned against it, rubbing the space between her eyes with her free hand. She was still holding her coffee. She took it to the couch and cried some more. She missed Stevie—it had been a long time since Cherry had cried alone. She kept rubbing her forehead.
She thought about texting someone, but there came a point when you’d been so sad for so long, and so repeatedly, that you couldn’t actually bear telling people anymore. When it felt like you were retelling the same story.
Russ was just a new wrinkle.
Her sisters would feel sorry for her if she told them what he’d said.And Stacia would, too. But Cherry didn’t actually want them to feel sorry for her. She was tired of being the recipient of so much pity.
When Tom came back—after more than an hour—he knocked on the door again. Cherry was upstairs, wrestling with her laundry. She walked to the top of the stairs and shouted, “Come in!”
He didn’t come in. After a few minutes, he knocked again.
For Christ’s sake.Was Cherry going to have to tell her ex-husband that it was okay that he’d tried to kiss her? That they could still be civil? That she had other, more lacerating problems at the moment? “Just come in!” she shouted.
When he knockedagain, Cherry grabbed her basket of clothes and started down the stairs. She held the basket on her hip and opened the door. “You can just let yourself in. It’s fine.”
Russ looked confused. “The door was locked.”
“Russ...” Cherry breathed out. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to get my car,” he said. “I tried to call.”
She’d ignored his calls.
“Okay.” Cherry glanced past him. The Polestar was in her driveway. “Take your car.”
“Can we talk, please?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk.”
Russ looked clean and fresh. He was wearing a canvas coat with a corduroy collar. She could smell his aftershave. He looked worried. “When do you think youwillwant to talk?”
Cherry shook her head again. “I don’t think that I will.”
He put his hand on the doorframe. “Cherry, come on. Please let me apologize.”
She shook her head. “No.”
His eyes got big. “I was not in my right mind last night. I was angry, and I’d had too much to drink.”
She took a step forward. “You shouldn’t have been angry atme.”
He took a step back. “I wasn’t.”
“You were!”
