​Chapter Forty-Three
Rochelle

“She’s here,” I say. I wait, and I have to wait a beat more than I expect before I hear breathing on the other end.

“Ro, that’s amazing.” Ann’s voice sounds like home. Which is strange because home has shifted. It’s this tiny rental house with the carpet that pulls up at the corners and the broken pump outside. Jerry said it would take a week or so before the new one comes in. I walk across the dirty linoleum in the kitchen–dirty no matter how many times I clean it–and I have this strange warmth in my chest because Wren is a mere few streets away.

“Yeah. Yeah it is.” But then I think of Natalie. She’s like a knot I’ve been trying to break free with raw fingertips. Every time I touch it, it hurts. Natalie pregnant. Another man. Jerry, with his oiled hair and pleasant face.

Wren.

What has she done?

“When are you going to see them?” I imagine Ann wearing her ridiculous gardening sweater and straw hat even though it’s too cold for it now. I’ve never seen a woman manage to stay so pristine in the sun and dirt.

“I was thinking Sunday. I need time to...process.”

“I can imagine.” She goes quiet again, an un-Ann-like thing to do. “I saw them.”

“Who?”

“Glenn. And that woman.” I laugh at her.

“Ann, she’s not a dirty word.”

“Says you.” I roll my eyes to the yellowing ceiling. I should feel gypped, like someone’s ripped my life from beneath my feet and has started wearing it for warmth. But I don’t. It was the wrong-sized shoe, my old life.

“It’s okay, Ann. I forgive them. I really do. They know not what they do and all that jazz. Seriously, I don’t even think it fazes them. Which I’m sure is horrifying on its own level. But pearls to swine and all that.”

“I’ve never been a fan of pork,” Ann says, the sweater now draped around her shoulders, her hat leaning heavily over one eye.

“Me neither.”