Page 3 of Her Ex-Husband's Brother

I stand up.

The pounding in my head eases, fractionally, when I move. Like something shifting and pressure releasing.

“What are you—” He watches me start toward the bedroom. “Lennon. You’re just going to walk away?”

“I’m going to pack a bag.”

“Is there someone else?”

I stop in the doorway. Does he know me at all? “You know I would never do that.”

“I don’t know anything about you right now.” His voice goes strange and quiet. “This isn’t my wife. This isn’t the woman I know.”

I look at him—at the house behind him, the neutral sectional, the inoffensive art, the rug he chose.

“I know,” I say. “I think maybe that’s been the problem.” Because he’s never known the real me this whole time, only the character I’ve been performing to make him happy.

I pack a bag, and then I walk out the door. He’s still standing in the living room when I go.

I’m the villain in this story.

And also, for the first time in a very long time, the story is starting to be mine.

TWO

AUGUST

The bellover the shop door hasn’t rung once in two hours.

I don’t mind the quiet, usually. Quiet is when the work actually happens. The real work, not the paying kind. I’ve got my sketchpad open on the station counter and I’m finishing out the dragon scene from this weekend, the one Owen and I spent approximately eleven hours defending ourselves against, from inside the blanket fort.

The fort was Owen’s idea. The dragons were mine, because I’m twenty-seven years old and apparently still operating at a solid four-year-old level when it comes to imagination.

But Owen finds it hilarious when I make the deep dragon voice and then we fight with the fake swords until he’s giggling and falling over onto the pillows. So it’s not the worst thing to have in common.

I feel like a hero when I make that kid giggle.

I sketch his face easily from memory, concentrating on the way he holds the sword I made him out of a wrapping paper tube and some duct tape. He made sure I was completely seriousabout the construction, because he wanted the swords to last this time. That kid does not half-ass a dragon battle.

By Sunday morning we’d built three separate defensive walls out of every throw pillow in the house, had consumed roughly our body weight in goldfish crackers, and had defeated the dragon approximately fourteen times, each death more elaborate than the last. Owen wanted it to come back every time.

More, he’d say, breathless and grinning, crawling over the pillow barricade.Again, Dad.

I gave him again every time he asked.

I had to leave for my shift before we could break the fort down completely. I’d gotten the kitchen cleaned up and the dishes done, gave Owen a bath and got him into clean clothes and handed him off to Priscilla at the door.

The living room still looked like a pillow factory had exploded.

She’s going to have feelings about that.

I probably should have stopped at twelve dragon deaths to have time to clean up everything.

It’s like, no matter how hard I try, inevitably some ball gets dropped somewhere. I get that it’s not fair Priscilla always has to pick up the balls I can’t keep in the air, though.

Only one of the reasons I’m glad for her sake that she finally shook free of me.

“Damn, August.” Mack materializes behind my shoulder with the sixth sense he has for other people’s sketchpads. He’s the only one in the shop who can get away with looking without being told to shove off. Mostly because he’s actually looking the way artists look, assessing the line weight, composition, and balance. I respect his opinion more than anyone’s. Mack’s been tattooing impressive art since before I could talk.