I came home early because Ethan's school called about a fever. They said someone had to pick him up by two. I tried Garrett first. His phone went straight to voicemail.
So I left the grocery store mid-shift, told my manager I was sorry, and drove to the school with my hands tight on the wheel. Ethan was small and hot in the nurse's office. I signed him out and carried him to the car.
By the time we got home it was three-fifteen. I had children's Tylenol in my purse and soup in the cupboard. I unlocked the door with Ethan on my hip.
The apartment smelled like perfume.
Not mine. Something warm and sweet and expensive. The same smell I'd found on Garrett's collar.
I set Ethan down in the hallway. He leaned against the wall, eyes half-closed. I told him to wait there. My voice came out steady. I don't know how.
I walked into the living room.
She was on the couch. Legs crossed, one arm draped along the back cushion. Dark hair pulled over one shoulder. She looked up when I came in, and she smiled.
She was wearing my mother's pearls.
I stopped breathing.
The necklace sat against her collarbone, each pearl catching the gray afternoon light from the window. Perfectly round. Perfectly white. My mother had worn them on her wedding day. She'd given them to me the week before I left for Seattle, pressed the velvet box into my hands and told me they were mine now.
I'd kept them locked in a box in the back of my closet. The only thing of hers I had left that still smelled like her perfume when I opened the lid.
And this woman was wearing them like costume jewelry.
The coat came next. Vintage Chanel, black wool with the quilted lining my mother had saved two years to buy. It was draped across the woman's shoulders like a shawl.
"Who are you?" My voice didn't sound like mine.
She tilted her head. "Jaliyah."
Just the name. Like I was supposed to know it. Like we'd met before.
"Take those off."
She blinked. "What?"
"The necklace. The coat. Take them off. Now."
Jaliyah looked down at the pearls, touched them with one finger. "These? Garrett said I could borrow them."
"Garrett doesn't own them. I do. They were my mother's."
"Were," she said. Soft. Almost kind. "That's the word you used. Were."
The room tilted.
I crossed the space between us in three steps. I reached for the necklace. My hands were shaking so hard I could barely see.
Jaliyah leaned back. Not fast. Just enough. "You might want to be careful."
"Give them to me."
"Or what?"
The door slammed open behind me.
Garrett came in fast, jacket half off, keys still in his hand. He looked at me. Then at Jaliyah. Then back at me.
"What the hell is going on?"
I turned to him. My throat was so tight I could barely get the words out. "She's wearing my mother's things. Tell her to take them off."
Garrett looked at Jaliyah. She smiled at him. Just a small one, like they were sharing a joke I wasn't in on.
Then he looked back at me.
"Eve. Calm down."
"I am calm. Tell her to take them off."
"They're just clothes."
"They're not clothes. They're my mother's. She has no right—"
"She has every right I give her."
The air went out of the room.
Garrett stepped closer. His voice dropped. "You keep them locked in a box like some kind of shrine. They're just sitting there. Jaliyah needed something nice for an event. I told her she could borrow them."
"You told her."
"Yeah. I told her."
"You went into my closet. You took my mother's things. And you gave them to her."
"Jesus Christ, Eve, your mother's dead."
I felt it before I understood it. The crack. The sound.
Garrett's hand across my face.
My head snapped to the side. The pain came a second later, white and sharp and everywhere. I staggered back. My hand went to my cheek. It was hot.
Garrett stood there breathing hard. His hand was still raised.
Behind him, Jaliyah was still on the couch. She hadn't moved. She was watching me with her head tilted, like I was something interesting on television.
Garrett lowered his hand. His voice came out rough. "Jaliyah deserves nice things more than a dead woman."
I looked at him.
I looked at the man who knelt in the rain on 114th Street and told me I was the only woman he'd ever love.
I looked at the man who just hit me in front of his mistress while wearing my dead mother's pearls.
And something inside me stopped.
Not broke. Stopped.
Like a clock running out of time.
I turned and walked out of the living room. Ethan was still in the hallway, eyes wide. I picked him up. He was burning. I carried him to his room and closed the door.
I gave him Tylenol. I pulled the blankets up. I sat on the edge of his bed until his eyes closed.
Then I went into the bathroom and locked the door and looked at my face in the mirror.
There was a red mark across my cheek. It would be a bruise by morning.
I pressed my fingers to it. It didn't feel like anything.
I couldn't feel anything.
I stood there for a long time, looking at the woman in the mirror, and I didn't recognize her.
She looked like someone who'd been underwater too long.
Someone who'd finally stopped trying to swim.
