PART 2
The next morning, I woke before Mason.
For years, that had been ordinary.
I had always risen first because mornings were the only quiet part of my day. Before phones began ringing, before staff arrived, before Mason disappeared into meetings that somehow expanded to fill every hour available to him, I had twenty or thirty minutes when our house belonged only to me.
Usually, I spent them making coffee.
That morning, I sat at the kitchen island and watched dawn spread weak gray light across the windows.
I did not make coffee.
I did not check Mason’s schedule.
I did not send his assistant a reminder about the lunch with the alderman’s foundation director.
I did not move the navy suit from the dry-cleaning hook outside his dressing room.
I simply sat there.
At six forty-two, Mason came downstairs.
He had changed out of the man I had seen in the lounge.
Or perhaps he had changed back into the version I knew.
His hair was still damp from the shower. His shirt sleeves were rolled once at the wrists. He looked tired, but not unhappy. That detail stayed with me.
He stopped when he saw the empty counter.
“No coffee?”
I looked up.
“There are beans.”
His eyebrows lifted slightly.
In seven years of marriage, I could count on one hand the number of mornings Mason had made his own coffee.
He opened a cabinet.
For several seconds he stared inside it.
“The filters?”
“Second drawer.”
He glanced at me.
I met his eyes.
Something flickered across his face.
Not guilt.
Recognition.
A very small recognition that something had shifted.
He found the filters.
“I didn’t know we kept them there.”
“I know.”
The machine hissed to life.
I watched him pour water too quickly and spill some onto the counter.
A strange, almost painful tenderness moved through me.
This was the man I had married.
The man who knew exactly how to negotiate a warehouse lease affecting three hundred employees but did not know where we kept coffee filters.
Once, I had found that charming.
Now it felt like evidence.
Mason wiped the counter with a dish towel.
“Did you sleep?”
“A little.”
“You seemed off last night.”
I folded my hands.
“So did you.”
He leaned against the counter.
“Long week.”
There it was.
The language we had perfected together.
Long week.
Busy month.
Bad timing.
After the holidays.
When things settle down.
Each phrase had once sounded temporary.
Somehow, they had accumulated into years.
Mason took a drink of coffee and winced.
“That’s terrible.”
“You used too much.”
“I followed the instructions.”
“You didn’t measure.”
A faint smile touched his mouth.
“There she is.”
The words landed softly between us.
He meant the woman who corrected him.
The woman who knew how everything worked.
The woman who fixed things.
I stood.
“I have an appointment this morning.”
His smile faded.
“What appointment?”
The question should not have bothered me.
It did.
Not because he asked.
Because he sounded genuinely surprised that there could be something on my calendar he didn’t already know about.
“Personal.”
“Everything okay?”
“Everything is exactly what it is.”
Mason studied me.
I picked up my handbag.
“Claire.”
I turned.
He waited, but whatever instinct had made him say my name did not provide him with anything else.
Finally he asked, “Dinner tonight?”
A week earlier, I would have heard hope in that question.
That morning, I heard routine.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
He stared at me as if I had begun speaking another language.
I almost laughed.
Instead I said, “Have a good day, Mason.”
Then I left.
My appointment was with a woman named Helena Price.
I had known Helena socially for nearly four years. She was a family attorney, though we had never discussed her work in detail. At fundraisers, Helena was usually surrounded by louder people, which made her easy to underestimate.
I had learned long ago that quiet people often noticed the most.
Her office occupied the fourth floor of a narrow building overlooking the river. Nothing about it felt dramatic. There were pale shelves, framed photographs, two thriving plants, and a bowl filled with peppermints.
Helena greeted me without surprise.
That frightened me more than if she had gasped.
“Claire.”
“Helena.”
She closed the office door.
“Coffee?”
“No.”
“Tea?”
“No.”
She sat behind her desk.
I remained standing for another moment.
Then I asked the question that had been pressing against my ribs since midnight.
“If a woman wanted to understand what her life looked like without her husband, where would she begin?”
Helena did not reach for a legal pad.
She did not say divorce.
She simply said, “By understanding what belongs to her.”
I sat.
For the next hour, we talked.
Not about revenge.
Not about destroying Mason.
Not about what I could take from him.
We talked about practical things.
Property.
Accounts.
Insurance.
The charitable foundation.
The apartment my grandmother had left me before I married.
The consulting company I had created three years earlier because several nonprofit boards insisted on paying me for event strategy and donor relations.
I had never considered it a career.
Mason had once joked that it was my “expensive hobby.”
Helena did not laugh when I told her.
“Do you know what your company made last year?”
“Approximately.”
“How approximately?”
I told her.
She blinked.
“Claire, that’s not a hobby.”
“I know that now.”
She leaned back.
“Does Mason?”
“Probably not.”
“Does he know about all your clients?”
“I don’t think he could name three.”
Helena was quiet.
Then she asked, “Does he control the accounts?”
“No.”
“Does he interfere with your work?”
“No.”
That mattered.
Mason was absent.
He was dismissive sometimes.
But he had never forbidden me from doing anything. Never monitored my spending. Never demanded passwords. Never tried to isolate me from my friends or family.
Whatever was wrong with our marriage had grown in colder soil.
Neglect.
Habit.
Silence.
Two people becoming strangers one postponed conversation at a time.
Helena folded her hands.
“Have you told him you want to leave?”
“I haven’t decided what I want.”
“Good.”
That answer surprised me.
She gave me a small smile.
“Not because staying is better than leaving. Because decisions made entirely in reaction to another person’s failure often keep that person at the center of your life. Figure out what you want first.”
I looked toward the window.
Below us, the river moved between steel and glass towers.
“I heard him telling people he stopped trying a long time ago.”
Helena’s expression changed.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
“Did he know you were there?”
“No.”
“Did he say why?”
“No.”
She hesitated.
“Do you want to know?”
My immediate answer was yes.
The truthful answer took longer.
“I don’t know.”
Helena nodded.
“Then don’t let anyone rush you.”
When I left her office, I walked three blocks before realizing I had nowhere I needed to be.
That had almost never happened.
My calendar was usually built around other people’s needs.
At ten, I should have called the florist about centerpieces for the hospital board luncheon.
At eleven thirty, I should have reminded Mason that his mother had an appointment with her cardiologist.
At noon, I should have reviewed seating assignments for a restaurant opening.
Should.
Should.
Should.
I stopped outside a bookstore.
In the window sat a handwritten sign.
WE ARE OPEN. COME IN OUT OF THE COLD.
I went inside.
For the next hour, nobody needed anything from me.
I bought a novel.
I drank coffee someone else had made.
I sat in an upstairs chair near the window and read eleven pages without retaining a single sentence.
It was wonderful.
At twelve fifteen, my phone rang.
Eleanor Bennett.
Mason’s mother.
I nearly ignored it.
Then years of habit won.
“Hi, Eleanor.”
“Claire, darling. You sound tired.”
“I’m fine.”
A pause.
Eleanor had raised two sons, survived a difficult marriage, buried one husband, and chaired enough committees to recognize a lie before it finished leaving someone’s mouth.
“Are you?”
I closed the book.
“How was your appointment?”
Another pause.
“My appointment?”
“Your cardiologist.”
“Oh.”
She sounded genuinely confused.
Then she said, “That’s next Thursday.”
I looked at the date on my phone.
Mason’s calendar had it listed for today.
For seven years, I had coordinated appointments, reminders, birthday dinners, medication pickups after minor surgeries, holiday gifts.
Had Mason remembered incorrectly?
Or had I?
“I must have written it down wrong.”
“You never write things down wrong.”
“Eleanor.”
“Claire.”
I smiled despite myself.
“Next Thursday, then.”
She changed the subject.
“Are you still coming Sunday?”
Sunday dinner at Eleanor’s house was one of the few Bennett traditions that survived every schedule.
Mason attended perhaps half the time.
I attended almost always.
“I haven’t decided.”
This time, her silence was unmistakable.
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened.”
“That’s a very married-person answer.”
I looked down at my wedding ring.
“I have some things to think about.”
Eleanor did not press.
That was one of the reasons I loved her.
“Then think,” she said. “But come Sunday if you want somewhere to sit while you’re doing it.”
My throat tightened.
“Thank you.”
“And Claire?”
“Yes?”
“You are invited whether Mason comes or not.”
After we hung up, I remained in the bookstore until nearly two.
Then I did something I had not done in years.
I went to see my sister.
Anna lived in Evanston with her husband, Noah, and their ten-year-old daughter, Sophie.
Anna was three years younger than me and possessed a gift I had somehow missed being given: she could identify what she wanted before everyone else in the room told her what they needed.
When I arrived unexpectedly, she opened the door wearing paint-stained jeans and stared at me.
“Who died?”
“No one.”
“Are you sure?”
“Anna.”
“You haven’t shown up at my house without scheduling it since 2019.”
“Can I come in?”
She stepped aside immediately.
Sophie was at school. Noah was at work. The house smelled faintly of cinnamon and sawdust because Anna had decided that morning to repaint the hallway and, as usual, had expanded the project into removing half the trim.
She handed me a paintbrush.
“No.”
“Then hold this.”
She gave me a screwdriver.
“Why are you renovating?”
“Because the hallway was ugly.”
“It wasn’t.”
“It offended me.”
That was Anna.
Ten minutes later, I told her what I had heard.
She sat down on the floor.
The screwdriver disappeared from her hand.
For once, she had no immediate comment.
Then she said, “I am trying very hard not to say anything that makes this about how much I’ve wanted to shake your husband for the past five years.”
“Thank you.”
“I deserve credit.”
“You do.”
She looked at me carefully.
“Did he say he doesn’t love you?”
“No.”
“Did he say he wanted a divorce?”
“No.”
“Did he say there’s someone else?”
“No.”
I frowned.
Anna noticed.
“What?”
“I hadn’t even thought about someone else.”
“Oh.”
Her face tightened.
“No, no. Forget I said that.”
I stared at the wall.
Mason came home late.
Mason traveled.
Mason protected his phone because half the information on it involved contracts, confidential negotiations, employee matters, and clients.
Had there been someone else?
The thought hurt.
But not in the way I expected.
It hurt because I realized how little I knew about his life.
Anna touched my knee.
“Claire.”
“I don’t know him anymore.”
The admission was worse than the possibility of another woman.
Anna’s expression softened.
“Maybe he doesn’t know you either.”
I looked at her.
She shrugged.
“You’ve spent your whole marriage being useful.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say.”
“I don’t mean it cruelly.”
“No, you do.”
“Only a little.”
Despite everything, I laughed.
Anna continued.
“You are everyone’s emergency contact. You remember everyone’s allergies. You fix everyone’s problems before they know they have them. You think that’s how you love people.”
“It is how I love people.”
“Yes. But sometimes you don’t leave them anything to do for you.”
The laughter left me.
“Are you saying this is my fault?”
“No.”
She shook her head firmly.
“I’m saying two things can be true. Mason can have taken you for granted, and you can have gotten very good at hiding what you needed.”
I looked away.
That sounded too familiar.
Anna had watched me become the competent one our entire childhood.
Our father traveled constantly for work.
Our mother loved us, but after Anna was born, she battled years of depression that our family barely understood at the time.
I packed lunches.
Remembered permission slips.
Learned how to make spaghetti at twelve.
Being needed had once made me feel safe.
Maybe it still did.
Anna stood.
“Do you know what you want?”
“No.”
“Then don’t make a decision today.”
“Helena said the same thing.”
“You saw a lawyer?”
“A friend who happens to be one.”
Anna whistled softly.
“So this is serious.”
“It became serious the moment I realized everyone else knew before I did.”
She nodded.
That was the wound beneath the wound.
Not simply that Mason had stopped trying.
That he had said it aloud to other people while letting me continue alone.
That evening, Mason arrived home at seven ten.
I was in the library.
He appeared in the doorway without his jacket.
“You’re home.”
“So are you.”
“I thought we could eat.”
“We can.”
He waited.
I turned a page.
After a few seconds, he asked, “Did Rosa leave something?”
Rosa came three afternoons a week to help with cleaning.
I looked up.
“Probably.”
Another silence.
Then Mason gave a short exhale.
“Okay.”
I returned to my book.
He remained there.
“Claire.”
“Yes?”
“What’s going on?”
I closed the novel.
“You tell me.”
His expression changed.
Very slightly.
The instinctive wariness of a man accustomed to hearing hidden meanings in ordinary sentences.
“I don’t know what that means.”
“I think you do.”
He studied my face.
And then I saw it.
The exact second he understood.
His shoulders lowered.
Not from relief.
From resignation.
“You heard us.”
It was not a question.
I stood.
“How long?”
“Claire—”
“How long have you stopped trying?”
He rubbed the back of his neck.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No.”
“It was easier to say it to Grant?”
His jaw tightened.
“I didn’t know you were outside.”
“I understand that.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know exactly what you meant.”
Mason looked toward the windows.
For a long moment he said nothing.
Then he sat in the armchair opposite mine.
“Almost two years.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“Two years?”
“I don’t mean I stopped caring.”
“Then what do you mean?”
He looked exhausted.
“Every time I tried to talk to you, there was an event. Or a meeting. Or my mother needed something. Or you told me we’d talk after dinner and then I got home at eleven.”
I stared at him.
“You got home at eleven.”
“I know.”
“You were the one who wasn’t here.”
“I know.”
“Then how exactly did I prevent you from talking?”
His face tightened.
“I’m not blaming you.”
“It sounds remarkably like blame.”
“I’m trying to explain.”
“Then explain.”
He leaned forward, forearms on his knees.
“I stopped believing anything would change.”
“So you laughed about me instead.”
“I wasn’t laughing at you.”
“You laughed after Grant said I never quit.”
Mason closed his eyes briefly.
“We had been drinking.”
“That makes it better?”
“No.”
“Good.”
I crossed my arms.
“Is there someone else?”
His eyes opened.
“No.”
The answer came so quickly that I believed it.
At least at first.
“No one?”
“No.”
“Has there been?”
“No.”
“Then what happened?”
Mason looked at me for a long time.
“I don’t know how to answer that in one sentence.”
“You’ve had two years to think about it.”
“Not properly.”
“Clearly.”
He stood.
“I’m not going to fight with you.”
“I don’t want a fight.”
“What do you want?”
There it was again.
For years, I had anticipated that question from everyone but my husband.
What do you want?
I had no answer ready.
“I want you to stop speaking for both of us.”
His brow furrowed.
“You decided the marriage was over. You didn’t tell me. You just withdrew and let me keep performing it.”
“That’s not fair.”
I laughed once.
“No?”
“I was here.”
“Physically.”
“I paid attention.”
“To what?”
“To you.”
“Tell me one thing I’m worried about right now that has nothing to do with us.”
His mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
My anger disappeared so suddenly that I almost wished it would return.
“Exactly.”
He looked wounded.
That made everything harder.
Because Mason was not heartless.
He was not some theatrical villain who had spent seven years plotting to reduce me to furniture.
He was simply a man who had become accustomed to my presence the way people became accustomed to central heating.
Essential.
Invisible.
“I need some space,” I said.
His face became still.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m moving into the guest room.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
He nodded slowly.
“Okay.”
I expected him to protest.
Part of me hated that he didn’t.
I gathered my book and left.
Three days passed.
Then four.
We became polite roommates in a house too large for silence.
I stopped managing Mason’s calendar.
On Tuesday, he called me from his office.
“Did you change something with Daniel?”
Daniel was his executive assistant.
“No.”
“He says he doesn’t have the donor lunch details.”
“Then he should call the donor.”
A pause.
“You usually handle it.”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“Okay.”
He hung up.
The next morning, Eleanor called Mason directly to remind him about her cardiology appointment.
Later she called me.
“He sounded confused.”
“He’s learning where the coffee filters are too.”
Eleanor laughed.
Then stopped.
“You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to talk to him?”
“No.”
“Good.”
That surprised me.
“I thought you’d want to fix it.”
“I raised him,” she said. “I don’t intend to finish raising him at forty-one.”
The sentence stayed with me.
On Friday afternoon, my consultant, Miriam Lee, arrived at the house with three folders.
Miriam had worked with me for eighteen months.
She was thirty, frighteningly organized, and possessed no patience for my habit of undercharging organizations I liked.
“We need to discuss next year,” she said.
“That sounds ominous.”
“It’s profitable.”
“Worse.”
She spread documents across the dining table.
Our consulting firm had received three new inquiries.
One from a university foundation.
One from a regional arts organization.
And one from an international children’s literacy nonprofit planning to expand its annual Chicago gala.
“They want you personally,” Miriam said.
“For what?”
“Strategy, donor development, event restructuring.”
“I already have four major accounts.”
“You have six.”
“Two are small.”
“They pay us.”
“Occasionally.”
Miriam sighed.
“Claire.”
She pushed one folder toward me.
“If you stopped treating your work like something you do between helping Mason and everyone else, this could become a serious firm.”
I looked at the numbers.
They were larger than I expected.
“How serious?”
She told me.
I stared at her.
“That can’t be right.”
“It is.”
“Why didn’t I know this?”
“Because every quarter when I try to schedule financial planning, you move the meeting because someone in the Bennett universe has an emergency.”
I sat back.
The Bennett universe.
I had never heard it described that way.
Miriam softened.
“I like Mason.”
“Do you?”
“I mean, I don’t want to throw a drink on him when he enters a room.”
“Generous.”
“But this company is yours.”
She tapped the folder.
“You built it.”
The word built startled me.
I had spent years describing Mason as a builder.
He built businesses.
He built influence.
He built a reputation that expanded far beyond the neighborhoods where he started.
I had thought of myself as someone who helped.
Maybe I had built something too.
That evening, I took the folder upstairs.
Mason was in the hall outside his bedroom.
He glanced at it.
“Work?”
“Yes.”
“Anything good?”
“Possibly.”
He waited.
For years, that would have been enough invitation for me to explain everything.
I didn’t.
“Good night, Mason.”
“Claire.”
I stopped.
His expression was uncertain.
“I made a reservation tomorrow.”
“For what?”
“Dinner.”
I almost said no.
Then I remembered Helena.
Figure out what you want.
I could not understand what I wanted if I refused every conversation.
“Where?”
“Marcellino’s.”
The place where he proposed.
I frowned.
“No.”
His face fell.
Then I added, “Not there.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want nostalgia doing the work for us.”
He absorbed that.
“Fair.”
“Somewhere new.”
“Okay.”
Saturday night, we met at a small restaurant in Lincoln Park.
Not arrived together.
Met.
That distinction mattered to me.
Mason was already seated when I came in.
He stood automatically.
“You look beautiful.”
I almost thanked him.
Instead I said, “You haven’t told me that in eight months.”
His face tightened.
“You counted?”
“No. I remembered.”
We sat.
Dinner began awkwardly.
We discussed the menu.
The weather.
Eleanor’s appointment.
Everything except the reason we were there.
Finally I set down my glass.
“Why did you ask me to dinner?”
Mason looked around the room.
Then at me.
“Because I haven’t known what to say to you at home.”
“And here?”
“Still not much.”
I almost smiled.
He did.
For one brief second, we were ourselves.
Or who we had once been.
Then Mason said, “I lied.”
My fingers tightened around the stem of my glass.
“About another woman?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“When I told you I stopped trying two years ago.”
I waited.
He looked directly at me.
“I didn’t stop because I thought the marriage was hopeless.”
“Then why?”
“Because I thought you were going to leave.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“Two years ago, I found something.”
“What did you find?”
He did not answer immediately.
The restaurant noise seemed to recede.
“Your application.”
“My what?”
“For the fellowship in Boston.”
I did not breathe.
Mason continued.
“The nonprofit leadership program. Eleven months. I saw the acceptance email on the printer in your office.”
Memory returned all at once.
A winter afternoon.
A program I had applied to after Anna pushed the brochure across a table and said, You would be brilliant at this.
I had been accepted.
I had stared at the email for three days.
Then I declined.
I had never told Mason.
Not because he had forbidden it.
Because he had been negotiating the purchase of a construction company.
Because Eleanor had recently had surgery.
Because the foundation gala was approaching.
Because there had always been reasons.
“I didn’t go,” I said.
“I know.”
“Then why would you think I was leaving you?”
“Because of what you wrote.”
My stomach tightened.
“What I wrote where?”
Mason reached inside his jacket.
He removed a folded sheet of paper.
Not the original.
A copy.
He slid it across the table.
I unfolded it.
At the top was my name.
Below it was an essay I had written for the fellowship application.
Describe a professional or personal transition you hope the program will help you navigate.
I remembered writing it late one night.
I did not remember exactly what I had said.
Until I read the final paragraph.
For years, I have become increasingly skilled at maintaining structures other people depend upon. I am proud of that work, but I have begun to wonder whether being indispensable has become a substitute for having a life I consciously chose. I want to learn who I am when I am not organizing myself around the needs of other people. I suspect the answer may require difficult changes.
I read it twice.
Then I looked at Mason.
“You thought this meant I was leaving you?”
“I thought I was one of the structures.”
“Mason.”
“You were miserable.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
His voice was quiet.
“I could see it.”
“Then why didn’t you ask me?”
“I did.”
“When?”
“Dozens of times.”
“Name one.”
He leaned back.
“That Christmas at my mother’s. I asked if you were happy.”
“You asked while thirty people were in the next room.”
“You said yes.”
“What did you expect me to say?”
“I don’t know.”
He rubbed his thumb against the edge of the table.
“I was afraid if I asked the question properly, you’d answer it properly.”
That silenced me.
There was no clever response.
No anger sharp enough to cut through the sadness of it.
“So you stopped trying before I could leave.”
Mason looked down.
“Something like that.”
“That is possibly the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”
“I’ve done worse.”
“Not in our marriage.”
He accepted that.
I folded the paper carefully.
“Why do you have this?”
“I kept it.”
“For two years?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His eyes lifted to mine.
“Because I read it whenever I needed to remember that you had a life you wanted that didn’t include me.”
Pain moved through me.
Not the clean pain I had carried since the lounge.
Something more complicated.
“Mason, I declined the fellowship.”
“I know.”
“Because I stayed.”
“I know.”
“Then how did you turn that into abandonment?”
“Because you didn’t tell me.”
I froze.
He continued.
“You didn’t tell me you applied. You didn’t tell me you got in. You didn’t tell me you turned it down.”
I looked away.
“Would you have wanted me to go?”
“Yes.”
The answer was immediate.
I looked back at him.
Mason’s voice was rougher now.
“I would have hated it. I would have complained. I would have flown to Boston too often and driven you crazy. But yes, Claire. I would have wanted you to go.”
“You never said that.”
“You never gave me the chance.”
The waiter approached.
Neither of us noticed until he asked whether we wanted dessert.
“No,” we answered together.
When he left, I stared at the folded paper.
For seven years, I had believed I was saving our marriage through sacrifice.
For two years, Mason had believed those same sacrifices were evidence of a life I regretted.
We had been standing on opposite sides of the same locked door.
Neither of us had tried the handle.
“I heard you laugh,” I said.
“I know.”
“That still matters.”
“I know.”
“I can’t make that disappear because you were afraid.”
“I don’t expect you to.”
“And I don’t know if this fixes anything.”
“It doesn’t.”
His answer surprised me.
Mason looked tired.
Older than he had a week earlier.
“It just means I owe you the truth.”
I folded the paper again.
“All of it?”
He hesitated.
And there it was.
A clue so subtle I might once have missed it.
I did not miss it now.
“There’s more.”
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Mason looked toward the window.
Outside, people moved beneath umbrellas along the sidewalk.
“Yes.”
“What?”
He was silent for several seconds.
Then he said, “The fellowship wasn’t the only reason I thought you were preparing to leave.”
My pulse quickened.
“What else?”
Mason reached for his wallet.
From behind an old business card, he removed a small key.
He placed it on the table between us.
A brass key.
Ordinary.
Unlabeled.
I stared at it.
“What is that?”
“I found it in your desk eighteen months ago.”
“I don’t know what it opens.”
“I do.”
I looked at him.
He swallowed.
“It opens a storage unit in your name.”
My confusion deepened.
“I don’t have a storage unit.”
Mason’s gaze held mine.
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“Claire, you do.”
The restaurant seemed suddenly too warm.
“What’s inside it?”
He shook his head.
“I never opened it.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Because someone mailed me the lease.”
I stared at him.
“Who?”
Mason’s next words changed the shape of the question completely.
“Your father.”
My father had been dead for six years.
And whatever was inside that storage unit had apparently been waiting for me almost as long.
