The boxes of wedding favors were still cutting into my fingers when I turned the corner.
I told myself Arthur was at work.
He wasn’t.
He had my sister pinned against the sage-and-blush floral wallpaper — the same wallpaper he and I had argued over for four hours. His belt was hanging open. His hands were tangled in her blonde hair.
And Lydia was wearing my silk camisole.
For several seconds, my brain simply refused to process what my eyes were showing me.
Arthur stumbled backward. His face went white.
“Nora,” he gasped.
Lydia didn’t move away quickly.
She calmly pulled down the hem of my camisole.
Then she arranged her face into the wounded expression she had perfected since childhood.
I stared at both of them.
The boxes cut deeper into my fingers.
I didn’t drop them.
Dropping them would create a mess.
And I had spent my entire life cleaning up after both of them.
“The caterer needs another thousand dollars,” I said.
My own voice sounded like it belonged to someone standing behind me.
“The payment is due tomorrow.”
Arthur stammered, “Nora, please, it isn’t what it looks like.”
“What part?” I asked. “The open belt, or my sister wearing my clothes?”
Lydia crossed her arms.
“We were discussing the wedding dress,” she said quietly. “And it just happened.”
Her makeup was perfectly smudged.
Even her guilt looked rehearsed.
Three years with Arthur flickered through my mind — the shared lease, the joint account, the save-the-date cards already sitting in three hundred mailboxes across the city.
I carried the boxes to the coffee table and set them down without a sound.
“Keep the apartment,” I said. “Someone will collect my things on Monday.”
Arthur reached toward me.
“If you touch me,” I said, “I will break your fingers.”
