Chapter 6
I didn't wait for Ryan to give me permission. I set the white papers down on the dresser and picked up my phone instead.
He was still standing in the bedroom doorway with Mara a step behind him, like he thought he could block me from my own closet. I opened the camera.
"I'm going to do this right," I said. "Since you wanted me to take your old clothes and go."
I pulled open the left side first. That was his. Navy shirts folded in stacks, jeans on hangers, the gym bag he never unpacked. I took a photo. Then another of the top shelf where his winter coats were still in dry cleaning plastic. I narrated as I went, not for them but for the record my phone was making.
"Men's closet, left side. Navy button-downs, five. Jeans, four pair." My voice stayed level. "These are yours, right?"
Ryan stepped forward. "Claire, you don't need to photograph my clothes like it's a crime scene."
"It's an inventory," I said. I didn't lower the phone. "Your words were to take your old clothes and go. So we'll be clear what that means."
I moved to the dresser. I pulled the second drawer open. His t-shirts, his socks rolled into balls. I photographed that too, the flash off, the shutter sound loud in the quiet apartment. Mara watched from the doorway with her arms crossed. She hadn't spoken since she hung up her own call.
"This is my dresser," I said, tapping the top one. "My things aren't included. Same with the right side of the closet."
Ryan exhaled hard through his nose. "You're being dramatic. I said take your clothes, I didn't mean—"
"You said take your old clothes and go," I said. "I'm leaving. That's what I'm doing. I'm just writing it down so there's no confusion when the movers come."
He reached like he might close the drawer. He stopped halfway when he realized I was still recording. His hand hovered and then dropped.
"Fine," he said. "Take pictures. But don't touch my stuff."
"I'm not touching it," I said. "I'm documenting it."
I went back to the closet and panned slowly from his side to mine. My gold wrap dress from the night before was hanging now on the far right, and my shoes lined up underneath. The papers on the dresser behind me were the proof I hadn't shown him yet, the county record with only my name on the title and the mortgage statement to match. I didn't need to hold them up. The list on my phone was becoming its own kind of leverage.
Mara shifted her weight. "How long is this going to take?" she asked, but it wasn't clear which one of us she was asking.
"Not long," I said. "I'm almost done in here."
I crouched to get the lower shelf in frame, where Ryan kept his extra duffel and a row of shoe boxes. That's when I saw it. Behind the dark duffel, pushed flat against the back wall, was a small black weekender bag I didn't recognize. Not his usual gray one. This one had a leather tag and a hotel luggage tag still looped through the zipper.
I didn't say anything at first. I just reached and slid it forward with two fingers so I could photograph it where it was.
Ryan went still.
Mara leaned in a little, despite herself.
I unzipped the outer pocket, just enough to see what was inside without dumping it. A folded receipt on heavy hotel paper slipped out. I picked it up.
The Meridian, downtown. King suite, two nights. The date printed at the top was three weeks earlier. The same weekend Ryan had told me he was at a conference in Chicago and I'd stayed home alone because the apartment's heat had been acting up.
I held the receipt up to the camera and took a photo of it flat against the closet door. Then I took one of the bag itself, with the luggage tag visible.
"What's this?" I asked, quiet.
Ryan didn't answer right away. His breathing was shallow. He looked at Mara before he looked at me.
"That's just... I stayed there after the conference got moved," he said. "It was nothing."
Mara stared at the receipt. Her face did something very small, a tightening around the mouth. She hadn't known the date either, I realized. She'd thought she was the beginning, not something that had already been booked and paid for.
"It's from three weeks ago," I said. I folded the receipt and set it on top of the papers on the dresser, right next to my phone. "I'll add it to the inventory."
"It's not part of the inventory," Ryan said, and this time his voice had an edge. "That's personal."
"Everything in this closet is personal until the movers decide what's yours," I said. "You said this place is perfect. I need to know what you brought into it."
I zipped the weekender back up and pushed it back where I found it, then took one last wide shot of the whole closet. The shutter clicked. I stood and slipped my phone into the pocket of my dress.
Mara hadn't moved from the doorway, but she wasn't standing as close to Ryan anymore. There was a few inches between them that hadn't been there when they were on the sofa.
May you like
I picked up the papers again. My hand was steady.
"I'm done in the bedroom," I said. "The living room closet is next."
