I hung up.
And for the first time all afternoon, my hands stopped shaking.
PART TWO
I went to see Ruth Bellamy.
Ruth and I had worked together for almost twenty-seven years at a rehabilitation clinic.
She had retired before I did and lived alone in a small blue bungalow near Byrd Park.
When she opened the door and saw me standing on her porch with my purse, coat, and nothing else, she did not say, “I told you so.”
She did not ask why I had no suitcase.
She only said, “Come inside.”
That kindness nearly broke me.
We sat at her kitchen table.
And for three hours, I told her everything.
Not just the supermarket.
Everything.
The bills.
The chores.
The basement room.
The house money.
The way Grant tracked grocery receipts.
