Three Baby Cribs and a Missing Set of Car Keys
“You have forty-eight hours to review the document with your own attorney,” I said, pointing to the blue folder. “But the terms are not going to change.”
Ryan did not pick up the folder. He stood in the middle of the empty, sunlit kitchen, staring dumbfounded at the transaction history printed on the bank paper.
By nine the next morning, the sun was just hitting the porch at Elm Lane.
My mother, Martha, sat in the wicker chair next to me, her fingers tracing the edge of her coffee mug. Inside the house, the quiet hum of the baby monitor was the only sound, carrying the rhythmic, soft breathing of the triplets.
Martha adjusted her glasses, pushing them up her nose before looking down at the gravel driveway. “Shaun said he would stay close by, just in case.”
“No,” I said, twirling my gold wedding ring around my finger. “I told him to go to the hardware store for those brass screws.”
“He is going to ask you to come back, Chloe.”
I looked at the peeling green paint on the porch railing. “He is going to ask because he wants to keep his life looking tidy.”
