I had been expecting him since morning, because men like Ethan rarely believe the first consequence is the real one. They assume every locked door is actually a negotiation. They think if they show up in person with the right face—injured, indignant, charming, whatever gets the best results—the woman on the other side will revert to some earlier version of herself and help them out of the mess they made.
I moved to the front window, lifted one slat of the blind, and there he was in the driveway.
Not alone.
Beside him stood Rebecca in a cheap white sundress that looked as though it had been purchased in haste from a clearance rack near a beach town boardwalk and had already wrinkled in all the wrong places. Her lipstick was too pink for the rest of her face. There was still a visible tan line where an engagement ring had recently been. Behind them stood Margaret, dressed like she was attending a hearing at which she intended to be personally offended by everyone present, and Lily, Ethan’s younger sister, wearing her spite the way some women wear a statement necklace.
The sight of them together—new wife, old mother, loyal sister—was so absurd it almost made me laugh again.
Almost.
Instead of opening the front door and letting them act as though they had any business on my porch, I used the wall control to open the garage.
The door rumbled upward. Sunlight streamed in around the stacked boxes lined neatly against the far wall. Ethan stopped short when he saw them.
“Wow,” he said. “Efficient. Didn’t even wait for me to get back.”
“You didn’t come back,” I said. “You got married.”
Rebecca looked at the floor.
Margaret pushed forward at once. “This is outrageous, Clara. A wife doesn’t throw her husband’s things into the garage like garbage.”
“I’m not his wife anymore,” I said. “And nothing here is garbage. It’s every last thing he owns. Packed carefully. You’re welcome.”
Lily barked out a laugh, sharp as broken glass. “You’re a control freak, Clara. Always have been. You’re just mad Ethan finally found someone who makes him happy.”
Even Rebecca flinched at the word happy, which told me all I needed to know about how blissful the Vegas honeymoon bubble really was.