She knew what was in it. Walter had told her. “Two thousand dollars, Sylvie,” he had said, setting it beside her chipped blue teacup on the kitchen table with the careful placement of a man who had rehearsed this gesture. “For emergencies.
She had looked at the card.
Then she had looked at his suitcases* two of them, leather, standing by the front door like he was leaving for a business trip.
Then she had looked at the window, where Marcy’s red car idled in the driveway.
Marcy was from the book club Walter had started attending every Thursday, which Sylvie had thought was a perfectly healthy sign in a retired man, right up until it wasn’t.
“Fifty years together,” Sylvie said, “and I get emergency money.”
His jaw tightened in the way it had always tightened when he felt criticiz.ed by something true. “Don’t make this ugly, Sylvie.”
“I didn’t make it anything, Walter.”
