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“There has not been a house.”

“No.”

His bag goes by the front door and sits there, which I learn is how this works. The suit goes in a bag of its own and the suit is better than mine.

“Minnesota tomorrow, Nashville Sunday,” he says. “Back Sunday night.”

“Two days.”

“Two days. It’s a short one.”

He picks up the bag, right-handed, and puts it on the right shoulder and rolls the joint once to settle it.

“You have the program in your bag.”

“I have the program in my bag.”

“Maren will know if you skip it.”

“Maren has informants.”

“Maren has me.”

He laughs, and then he kisses me in his own front hall with the bag on his shoulder and he takes his time about it.

“Don’t let her paint anything.”

“I make no promises on her behalf.”

He goes. The door closes. The house is very large and very quiet and has nothing in it that belongs to me except four shirts on four hangers and a wall with four holes in it.

Chapter twenty-six

Astrid

The truck comes Saturday, and the driver has a tablet with a name on it that is not mine.

“Riley?”

“Yes.”

“Bedroom set, desk, floor lamp. Where am I going?”

Some part of me that has survived a great deal says the sentence anyway. “There has been a mistake.”

He turns the tablet around. Paid in full. Delivery and setup. A date eleven days old.

Eleven days old is the day I stood in his kitchen and told him he was not buying a bed, not a desk, not a school uniform, not one single thing for either of us that he had decided we needed.

“It says surprise,” the driver says, reading it. “In the notes. It says, Surprise, do not call the house first.”

“I can see that.”

Ruth is at the top of the stairs with a basket on her hip.

“He didn’t tell you,” she says.

“No.”