Chapter 3
“Italian wine. The board wanted someone from administration present.”
He looked at her, then at the telephone, then at her again.
“Why did you not tell me?”
“I thought I did.”
“You did not.”
“Sorry.”
The word emerged too quickly. It always did.
Chase placed the telephone in his own pocket.
“I am taking this with me tomorrow,” he said. “You have been too forgetful lately. I can answer if anyone needs you.”
“Chase—”
“It is not a discussion, babe.”
He leaned forward and kissed her mouth. The kiss tasted of whiskey and warning.
“It is called caring.”
His hand traveled to the nape of her neck and stopped. His fingers spread across her skin.
He did not squeeze. He never needed to squeeze for Katarina to understand.
When he lowered his hand, he left the weight of a signature across her shoulders.
He stood and entered the bedroom. Within 2 minutes, he was snoring.
Katarina remained on the couch until 3:00 in the morning.
She thought about the card folded into 4 parts inside the pocket of her bag. She thought about the unlocked door. She thought about her father preparing Sunday pasta and about the notebook lost during the move.
At some point between 1 breath and the next, she made a decision.
It was not anger or courage. It was exhaustion, the kind that turned into bone.
Once exhaustion became bone, she could no longer carry it while pretending it was muscle.
Katarina was going to leave Chase.
She did not know how or when, but she knew she was going to do it.
On Sunday morning, she rehearsed in the bathroom mirror while he slept.
“Chase, I need to talk.”
“Chase, this is not working.”
“Chase, I want to end this.”
Each sentence collapsed inside her mouth before reaching its end.
She tried another.
“I am leaving.”
Her voice sounded thin. It did not convince even her.
Katarina washed her face and studied the mark on her neck. It was discreet, hidden by the collar of her nightgown, and approximately the size of a coin.
She remembered the fingers spread against her skin without squeezing. Then she remembered Vittorio’s hand closing around hers for a second longer than necessary.
Not all hands were the same.
She had forgotten that.
Katarina returned to the bedroom. Chase continued sleeping with his mouth open and 1 arm stretched across her side of the pillow, as though he intended to hold her even from a distance.
She took her telephone from the nightstand. Chase had forgotten to reclaim it.
She opened a message and typed slowly.
We need to talk tonight. Come here after dinner.
She deleted it.
Come here tonight. I have to tell you something.
She deleted that too.
In the end, she sent the shortest version.
Come here tonight, please.
The word please cost her. It came from habit.
Before her hand could decide otherwise, Katarina pressed send.
The screen displayed the word delivered.
She looked at the man sleeping in her bed. Then she looked at the bag on the chair, where Vittorio’s card remained folded into 4 parts, waiting for a Friday that had not yet arrived.
May you like
Perhaps there was more than 1 unlocked door in her life.
The question was whether she still remembered how to walk through one.
