Carrie's laptop was open on the bed.
The spreadsheet had not changed since she'd last checked it—same columns, same numbers, same dread. Column A: fixed monthly. Column B: variable. Column C: what was left. That last column was what she kept returning to, as if the numbers might rearrange themselves into something less frightening.
She'd paid for her share of the hoagies without blinking. She'd brought the cheese board from Whole Foods that she hadn't needed and did not regret, mostly. Richard would have had something to say about all of it—Richard, who had managed their money for twenty years, who had left her with a house she couldn't quite afford and a future she couldn't quite see.
Divorce was math. Nobody warned you about that part. Lawyers and feelings, yes, but underneath all of it: math. What you had, what you owed, what was left when you divided everything in half and subtracted the cost of starting over.
Three more months. She just needed to keep the numbers from getting worse until then.
She stared at the ceiling.
Downstairs, she could hear the TV, footsteps moving through the kitchen, someone opening the refrigerator. Normal sounds. A house full of people going about their evening.
She shut the laptop, left it on the bed, and went downstairs.
The middle deck had emptied out except for Olivia, who sat with her phone face-up on the arm of her chair.
There was a text. Not from Dan.
How's the house? Thinking about you.
She read it. Read it again. The words were simple—friendly, even. Innocent, if you wanted them to be. But she knew what was underneath them, and she knew he did too.
The ocean moved in the dark below the dune. From somewhere inside she could hear the television, voices.
You're writing a book about it. That's what she had said to Jen at the beach. But wasn't Olivia writing something too? A story she was telling herself about why this was okay, why texting someone who wasn't her husband didn't count, why she could stand on this line without crossing it.
She typed a reply. Stopped. Deleted it.
Dan had texted too. Hope you're having a good time. Miss you.
Before February, that text would have made her smile. Now she didn't know what to do with it.
She didn't answer either of them.
The sliding door opened. Jen, with two glasses of wine.
"Thought you could use one."
Olivia took it. Jen leaned against the railing, looking out at the dark.
"It's not Dan," Olivia said. "The texts."
Jen didn't seem surprised. "I figured."
"How?"
"You check your phone like you're waiting for something good. That's not how people check for their husband."
Olivia drank from the glass. Jen was right.
"We don't have to talk about it," Jen said.
"Not tonight."
"Okay."
They stood there together, watching the pool lights shift on the water below.
