Chapter 4
The heat hit me before the doors finished closing behind me.
It was that kind of early afternoon in late August where the air in the parking lot felt heavier than the air inside the office. The building's white double doors thumped shut and the AC cut off at once. I stood for a second on the top step with the cardboard box balanced against my hip and my tote digging into my shoulder, breathing in hot asphalt and cut grass from the median.
I hadn't parked close. I'd pulled into the back row on purpose that morning, telling myself I wouldn't be long. Now I had to walk the whole lot with the box in my arms.
My flats scuffed over the blacktop. Every step the box shifted a little and I hitched it higher. The tote swung and knocked against it. Cars gleamed in rows, heat shimmering off their roofs. I kept my head down until I reached my car, an old gray Civic I'd had since before Ryan and I split, and popped the trunk with my key fob.
The trunk was already half full. Grocery bags I hadn't unpacked from yesterday, a folded stroller I'd been meaning to return to my sister, a spare cardigan. I moved the bags aside and made a flat space.
I set the box down carefully. The cardboard was soft at the corners, taped once across the middle with clear packing tape that had yellowed. For a second I just looked at it sitting there in my trunk, the folded blue fabric inside perfectly still, and I didn't want to touch it.
But I did. I peeled the tape back with my thumbnail. It made a soft ripping sound and left a sticky residue on my fingers. I wiped it on my dark trousers without thinking.
I lifted the top flaps.
The blue was brighter outside than it had been under the office lights. Not navy, not the dark suit blue Ryan had been wearing. It was a soft, washed cornflower cotton. I reached in with both hands and lifted the fold.
It was a dress. A little girl's dress. Size maybe 6 or 7, with short puffed sleeves and a white eyelet collar I'd sewn on by hand. The hem was still a little uneven where I'd let it out once. The fabric was thin from washing, faded at the shoulders.
My throat did something tight and quick.
I'd made it four summers ago for the foundation's back-to-school drive. I was still keeping the office house then, still saying yes to every table Ryan needed filled. The assignment had been simple: pick a kid off the list, buy clothes, drop them at the church. I'd seen her name — Maya — and her size, and I hadn't been able to just buy something off a rack. I'd stayed up two nights at our kitchen table cutting that cotton, the window open to the cicadas, pinning the little collar while Ryan watched the news in the other room and asked why I didn't just order something online.
I'd kept it. I was going to give it to her myself at the drop-off, but then Ryan and I fought the morning of the drive — something about the seating chart for the gala — and I never went. The dress went in a box in our closet. Then in a box in his office closet when I left.
I hadn't realized he'd kept it on that cream chair like it belonged to his office.
I ran my thumb over the collar. The stitching was crooked in one spot where my hand had slipped. I folded it back exactly how it had been, three neat folds, and laid it gently back in the box. I didn't smooth it too much. I didn't want to press the creases any flatter.
My phone buzzed in my tote.
The sound was loud in the quiet lot. I flinched. I dug through the tote — keys, lip balm, old receipts — and pulled it out.
Ryan.
His name lit up the screen. Photo still the one from three years ago, him in that same navy suit at the lake house. It buzzed again in my hand. Then stopped. Then started again right away.
I stared at it. My breathing was shallow and I could hear it. I could still feel the heat coming off the trunk lid against my legs. For a second my thumb hovered over answer. The old habit was right there — pick up, explain, make it smaller so he would stop.
I didn't.
I pressed the side button to silence it and watched the call go to voicemail. The screen went dark and showed my own reflection for a second — brown bob stuck to my neck with sweat, white blouse wrinkled where the box had pressed against it.
The phone buzzed once more with a voicemail notification. I didn't play it.
I closed the box flaps, not taping them again, and pushed the box further into the trunk so it wouldn't slide. I shut the trunk. The thud echoed across the lot.
May you like
I got in the driver's seat and sat with my hands on the wheel, AC blowing hot at first then cold against my face. In the rearview I could see the top of the cardboard box through the back window. I didn't look back at the building.
I put the car in reverse and pulled out of the space.
