Russ’s lawyer argued for “the marital residence” for exactly as long as it took to read the deed, and then argued for “the marital contribution to the pool,” and then stopped, because Mr. Abernathy’s doorbell footage had made its way to the file along with eleven Tuesdays and a question about whose signature was on a bank application.
The forgery was referred.
Russ took a plea in the spring.
Restitution to a bank that had already been paid by his mother.
Probation.
A note in a file that will follow him to every dealership in the state, which Todd Marsh, I’m told, made sure of personally.
Todd and Brandi are divorced.
Brandi lives in the condo on the river.
It was, in the end, the only thing Russ had actually bought her, and it was bought with my house, and she knows that now, and I have decided that knowing it is her whole sentence.
Some things did not come back.
Thirty-one years.
I’m not going to pretend they were all Tuesdays.
There were Sundays in there, and a daughter, and a basil plant.
And the basil — Russ pulled it up, the Wednesday he came with Dale, on his way off the porch, one handful, the way a child kicks a sandcastle.
I planted mint there instead.
It’s harder to k*ll.
Erin came home for Christmas.
First time in four years.
She stood in the kitchen and looked at the sugar canister and said, “Mom, you kept it?”
“I kept it.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not hiding it.
That’s what he wanted.
Everything in a drawer.
Everything a formality.”
I picked it up.
