Derek glanced between us. "What's going on?"
My mother's jaw tightened. She was not a woman who liked being told what to do in her own hallway, especially in front of her son. But she also wasn't a woman who could stand looking like she had something to hide. So she set the box on the little bench by the door, pulled at the tape with her fingernails, and ripped it open.
I watched her face.
I had imagined this moment every night that week, lying awake in a bedroom that no longer felt like mine. I had imagined anger. I had imagined her yelling. I had even, in weaker moments, imagined her crying and pulling me into a hug and saying she hadn't meant any of it.
What I hadn't imagined was how quiet it would be.
Because the box she had packed with my sweaters and my books and my framed college diploma was no longer full of those things.
I had taken them out on Tuesday afternoon, while she was at her book club. I had taken out everything I wanted to keep and carried it, box by box, to the trunk of my car. Then I had put something else inside the first box and taped it back up exactly the way she had done it.
On top lay a ring of keys. The front door key. The back door key. The key to the shed where I'd stored the replacement gutters I paid for last spring. The garage door opener with the cracked plastic clip I'd glued back together twice.
Underneath the keys was a thick blue binder.
On the cover, I had written two words in black marker.
Three Years.
And underneath the binder, face-up where she couldn't miss it, was a printed copy of an email thread. The subject line sat at the top of the page in bold.
Room Setup.
My mother didn't move.
