PART 1 — SHE HANDED THE COFFEE BACK
At twelve minutes past seven in the morning I sat in a parked car and watched my wife go into our house through the door the landscaping crew use.
Amara has been married to me for nine years. Her name is next to mine on the foundation letterhead.
That morning she had a grocery bag held against her chest and a small key between her fingers, and she looked up and down that drive before she used it, the way you look when you are somewhere you are not supposed to be.
I am Ives Corriden. I am thirty-nine and I run a medical supply distributor in Wrenhall and I spent the last four years being away three weeks in every month and calling it providing.
Five months ago my mother Hesper moved in after[ a knee replacement. It was going to be a fortnight. My sister Marin came four days later to help look after her and stayed as well.
I never once thought about it.]
Until the Tuesday night, on a video call from Verrin City, when Amara answered from a small room with one overhead bulb that I did not recognise.
