“Then I’ll come over and let you hate it in person.”
She tried to laugh.
It came out as a sob.
Twenty minutes later, I was standing in the Mercer kitchen.
Karen sat on the floor beside a shattered wineglass. She wore gray sweatpants and an old college shirt that belonged to Daniel. Her mascara had run, and her hair was pulled into a careless knot.
She looked nothing like the composed woman who had always welcomed me into her home.
She looked like someone who had run out of strength.
I took the broom from the cupboard.
“Don’t,” she said.
“Don’t what?”
“Clean up after me.”
I glanced at the broken glass.
“I’m cleaning up the glass, not your life.”
She looked down at her bare feet.
“Oh.”
I swept the fragments into a dustpan, wiped the floor, and sat across from her.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
