She snatched the bag off the fence.
“Fine. Enjoy your little domestic paradise.”
Then she marched away.
That afternoon, Irvin came inside carrying the scarf she’d left in his car the previous day.
“Look what I found.”
I held it up.
“Very expensive.”
“Should I put it in the lost-and-found department?”
“I think we should establish a lost-and-found department specifically for things Vanessa mysteriously leaves around you.”
He laughed.
I found an empty storage box in the garage.
At first, I put the scarf inside as a joke. Then Irvin suggested we keep the other items together until we could return them all at once.
“Maybe a single, polite conversation hasn’t been enough,” he said. “Perhaps a complete inventory will help her understand.”
We placed the scarf in the box.
Then the unopened wine.
Then the cookie tin.
The handwritten notes followed.
I didn’t read the sealed notes. Irvin didn’t read them, either. We didn’t need to know their contents to understand the intention behind them.
