Then she reached into the pocket of my shirt and removed a key ring.
My brass house key hung from it beside a plastic alarm fob.
She had taken both from the ceramic bowl inside the kitchen.
The bowl Harold and I had used for twenty years.
She placed the keys in the deputy’s palm.
He handed them to me.
The metal felt warm from her hand.
“Anything else?” he asked.
Marcus disappeared into the house and returned carrying the spare garage remote and a second key.
He gave them directly to me.
Lauren watched him do it.
“You are choosing her over your wife,” she said.
Marcus looked exhausted.
“This is not about choosing people.
It is her house.”
It was the sentence he should have spoken the night before.
Lauren turned toward me.
“Fine.
Keep your precious house.”
“I intend to.”
She pulled my shirt off over her swimsuit and threw it across one of the suitcases.
The deputy bent, picked it up, and placed it neatly on the porch rail.
Lauren seized the handle of her largest suitcase and dragged it toward their car.
One wheel caught between the porch boards.
She jerked it free so violently that the case nearly tipped.
Marcus carried the other bags without speaking.
Before he closed the trunk, he walked back to me.
“Can I call you later?”
“You may call,” I said.
“That does not mean I will be ready to answer.”
His face tightened, but he nodded.
Lauren remained in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead.
Marcus climbed behind the wheel.
They drove away without another word.
The deputy stayed until their car disappeared beyond the curve in the road.
Then he returned my documents.
“I am sorry your family put you in this position,” he said.
“So am I.”
He glanced toward the house.
“Would you like me to walk through with you?”
I almost said no out of habit.
I had spent most of my life trying not to inconvenience anyone.
Then I looked at the red light on the keypad.
“Yes,” I said.
“I would appreciate that.”
We entered through the front door together.
The house smelled different.
Lauren’s candles had buried the salt air beneath something sweet and artificial.
The furniture had been moved.
My shell bowl was missing from the coffee table.
Harold’s fishing hat was no longer beside the back door.
I found the hat inside a pantry cabinet behind a stack of paper towels.
His photograph was in a drawer beneath takeout menus.
The shell bowl had been moved to the laundry room and filled with clothespins.
None of those things had much monetary value.
That was precisely why their removal hurt.
