We’d bought that house together when we were twenty-nine. We’d been married for two years. We’d been so proud of it that we took a picture of ourselves on the front steps holding the keys up to the camera like a trophy.
That picture was in a box somewhere now. Or in a landfill. I didn’t know which. I’d stopped asking about the boxes months ago.
My divorce from Brian had dragged through the courts for almost eight months before the judge finally awarded me the house.
Brian had two weeks to move out.
His deadline had expired the day before. I’d waited an extra day on purpose. I didn’t want to risk pulling into the driveway and seeing his truck still there. I didn’t want to watch him carry out the last of his things and look at me the way he’d been looking at me for a year. Like I was a stain he couldn’t scrub off.
