There’s soup in the freezer.
The guilt disappeared.
Not completely.
But enough.
A man climbed out of the moving truck and walked toward me carrying a clipboard.
“Margaret Sullivan?”
“That’s me.”
“I’m Luis.”
He glanced at the large two-story house behind me.
“Where are we going?”
I handed him a sheet of paper.
It listed the address of a furnished short-term apartment in Old Town Scottsdale.
I had rented it the previous afternoon for one month.
One month.
That was all the future I had been prepared to decide.
Luis studied the list of furniture I had written.
“You’ve marked specific items?”
“I have receipts for all of them.”
He smiled politely.
“Then you’re more organized than most people we move.”
“My husband used to say organization was my favorite form of entertainment.”
Luis laughed.
For the first time in twenty-four hours, the sound of another person laughing near me felt strangely comforting.
I walked him through the house.
“The blue sofa. Both armchairs. The television in the family room. The dining table and six chairs.”
Luis glanced toward the kitchen.
“The refrigerator?”
I hesitated.
It was mine.
I had paid nearly four thousand dollars for it because Rebecca had wanted the model with two freezer drawers and an interior water dispenser.
But there were groceries inside.
Food for the children when they came home.
“Leave it.”
Luis looked at my list.
“You have it marked.”
“I changed my mind.”
The washer and dryer stayed too.
So did the guest beds.
I realized, as we walked from room to room, that ownership and belonging were not always the same thing.
I had paid for the beds.
But Emily had slept in the guest room during thunderstorms.
Jack sometimes sprawled across one on Sunday afternoons reading comic books.
Taking everything simply because I could would not make me freer.
It would only make the house emptier.
In the end, I took the furniture from my bedroom, the antique sideboard that had belonged to Arthur’s mother, two lamps, my desk, one sofa, one armchair, a small television, several boxes of kitchenware I had brought from Illinois, my grandmother’s dishes, and the Italian coffee maker.
I stood in front of that machine longer than I should have.
Then I put a red sticker on it.
Luis raised an eyebrow.
“That one matters?”
“More than it should.”
