Chapter 3: Packing With Precision
I did not pack in anger. Anger would have made me careless. I packed with the same precision I used at work when preparing quarterly reports that could not afford a single error.
First the documents: passport, social security card, birth certificate, marriage certificate, the folder of financial records I had quietly updated every month. Then my laptop and the external hard drive from the bottom drawer of my desk—the one Daniel had never asked about. Finally the small black folder I had kept hidden for eight months behind the row of old tax returns in the closet.
I stood in the bedroom I had shared with Daniel and looked at the bed. The pillows were still arranged the way he liked them. The photograph from our honeymoon still sat on the nightstand. I left it there. Some things no longer belonged to me.
I called the locksmith from the kitchen while I waited. A calm voice on the other end took my address and credit card number and promised someone within the hour. I gave clear instructions: change every exterior lock, including the garage and the back sliding door. Do not leave copies for anyone else. I would collect the new keys myself.
While I waited, I walked through each room one last time. The living room where Ava refused to sit if I was already there. The kitchen where I had cooked dinners that went mostly uneaten when she was home. The guest room she used when she stayed over, the door always closed. I did not take a single thing that belonged to them. I took only what was mine, and the evidence that proved I had been paying attention for a long time.
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By the time the locksmith finished and handed me the new set of keys, the sun had begun to drop. I placed a large white envelope in the exact center of the kitchen table. Inside it were three things: a short letter, a copy of the evidence from the black folder, and the name and number of my attorney.
Then I left through the front door, locked it behind me with the new key, and drove to the small extended-stay suite I had reserved under my maiden name eight months earlier—on the same day I started the black folder.
