cord around his elbow as if it were yard waste.

“What are you doing?” Nora asked.

Thomas startled and looked guilty for half a second before remembering the role he had been assigned.

“Adrian said this was going to storage.”

Before Nora could answer, Marlene Kessler appeared from the hallway carrying an armful of Nora’s dresses.

“Oh,” Marlene said.

“You’re back earlier than expected.”

Earlier than expected.

Not welcome home.

Not we need to talk.

Earlier than expected, as if Nora were a guest who had interrupted housekeeping.

Marlene dropped the dresses into a trash bag and tied it tight.

Nora walked past her into the kitchen.

Adrian stood beside the island in a navy shirt, sleeves rolled, expression bored.

He looked handsome in the way expensive knives look beautiful before they cut.

Behind him, leaning against the archway, was Celeste.

Nora recognized her from the second phone’s photos, though real life made her less glamorous and more ordinary.

Thirty perhaps.

Glossy hair pinned badly at the back.

A narrow face arranged into confidence.

Bare feet tucked against heated tile.

She was wearing Nora’s ivory cashmere wrap.

Nora’s grandmother had bought it for her the year the bakery won its first regional award.

It had pearl buttons and a faint smell of cedar from the closet.

Celeste wore it open over a satin slip and held Nora’s favorite teacup between both hands.

The sight was intimate in a way the affair messages had not been.

A stolen body in a stolen room wearing a stolen memory.

Adrian picked up a folder from the counter and slid it toward her.

“You can sign quietly,” he said, “or you can embarrass yourself.”

Nora looked down.

Divorce papers.

The title sat there in clean black print, almost polite.

Petition for Dissolution of Marriage.

For a moment, no one moved.

Rain tapped the windows.

The refrigerator hummed.

Somewhere inside a garbage bag, a picture frame cracked under pressure.

“You’re not serious,” Nora said.

Adrian’s mouth curved.

“Don’t perform shock.

It doesn’t suit you.”

Marlene came in behind Nora and folded her arms.

“This is healthier for everyone.

Adrian needs a wife who wants the same life he does.”

Celeste lifted Nora’s teacup.

“And a home that doesn’t feel like a shrine to dead women.”

That sentence landed exactly where it was meant to land.

Nora looked at Celeste slowly.

Adrian did not correct her.

He did not even flinch.

Something inside Nora closed with a soft final click.

“All this before breakfast,” she said.

Adrian laughed once.

“Don’t make me the villain because you’re bad at accepting reality.”

“What reality is that?”

“The debt is gone,” he said.

“The bakery is safe.

My reputation is clean.

You did what you were useful for.

Now I’m done pretending this marriage works.”

Marlene snapped open another trash bag.

“Take only what fits,” she said.

“Adrian needs peace.”

Thomas avoided Nora’s eyes.

That hurt more than she expected.

Thomas had eaten her soups when his blood pressure was bad.

He had let her drive him to appointments.

He had cried at her grandmother’s funeral and told Nora she was family.

Now he stood with one hand on Evelyn’s piano, waiting to roll it out in the rain.

Celeste noticed Nora looking at the wrap and smiled.

“Don’t