really hard part was when she found a little leather box—one she’d never
known Josh possessed—filled with cards and notes she’d given him, ticket stubs
from shows they’d seen, the receipt from her engagement ring, the brochure from
the hotel in St. Lucia where they’d spent their honeymoon, and other random
items that held only sentimental value.
She
had a good cry over that box, until Logan needed his diaper changed.
After
lunch, Zoe and Logan both took a nap. She surprised herself by sleeping almost
three hours. Feeling a new burst of energy, she ran for forty-five minutes on
the treadmill in the bedroom and, after a shower, decided it was time to face
the closet.
The
clothes were much, much harder than the desk.
Josh
hadn’t been very neat, so his dresser drawers were a mess. He’d loved graphic
t-shirts, and he had a ridiculous number of jeans. After she pulled them out of
his drawers, she felt totally surrounded by them. By him .
In
the closet, she found the old sport coat she’d tried for years to get him to
throw away, and she smelled the aftershave he used to wear.
She
ended up sobbing on the floor of her closet, hugging the jacket to her chest.
She
had no idea how long she would have cried if she hadn’t been startled by a loud
knock on the door. She jumped up and hurried to the door, disoriented and very
confused since the doorman hadn’t called up to ask her about letting in a
visitor.
“Zoe,”
a familiar male voice came from outside the door. “Zoe, open the door.”
She
jerked to a stop in the middle of her living room, still holding Josh’s sport
coat, unable to process why Adam was here.
“Zoe,
let me in,” he called through the door, “or the doorman will unlock it!”
With
an indignant gasp, Zoe marched over and threw open the door. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Adam
pushed his way into her loft, his face not as composed as usual. It looked
tense and damp, as if he’d been sweating, and there was a strange sort of
urgency in his eyes. “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice inexplicably
thick.
“Yes,
I’m all right. What’s wrong with you? And how did you manage to bully my
doorman to let you up?”
“Why
haven’t you been answering your phone?” Adam sounded every bit as annoyed as
she was.
“Oh,”
she mumbled, realizing what must have happened. “I silenced the phone so people
wouldn’t bug me.”
Adam
took a deep breath—so deep she could see the inhale and exhale in his chest. It
seemed like he was suppressing something he wanted to say, like he was holding it
back by force.
“Now
what exactly are you doing here?” she asked, pleased when she sounded mostly
calm.
“I’ve
been trying to call you all day. This afternoon, when I couldn’t reach you, I
contacted Jane to see if she could—since I thought maybe you just didn’t want to
talk to me. But she couldn’t reach you either. So I came over. Then you didn’t
pick up when the doorman called up, so he let me in.”
As
he spoke, Zoe had gone over to pick up her phone. When she glanced at the
screen, she saw she’d missed twenty-seven calls in the eight hours her phone
had been silenced.
Her
eyes widened. “I just turned off the ringer,” she said, starting to feel a
little guilty and then annoyed that he’d made her feel that way.
“I
know that now.”
She
looked at Adam closely and saw the twitching of a muscle in his jaw, the way
the collar of his shirt and tie were slightly askew. She realized he’d been
genuinely concerned about her. “I’m sorry,” she said—more because he’d been
worried than because she’d done anything wrong. “I didn’t realize anyone was
trying to reach me.”
Adam
opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted when his own phone rang. He
answered it with a brief, “Peterson.”
After
a moment, he handed the phone to her. “Jane.”
“Hey,
Jane,” Zoe said into the phone, rather sheepishly. “Sorry about