Chapter 3 Walking Away
I wake up Saturday morning with a plan. It's not a good plan yet but it's enough to keep me moving instead of lying in bed staring at the ceiling until Monday comes and I have to pretend everything is normal.
Kirk will be at a weekend open house today.
He does them twice a month for Wildhorse Insurance Services.
Saturdays from ten to two. That gives me four hours to get my things out of his apartment and bring them here without having to see him or explain anything.
I don't owe him an explanation. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
I shower and dress and drink a cup of coffee standing at the kitchen counter because sitting on the back patio feels wrong this morning.
The patio is where I sit when I'm content.
When I'm grateful. When I want to enjoy the quiet before the day begins.
I don't feel any of those things right now so I stand at the counter instead and drink my coffee in the kitchen and stare at the jacket Kirk left draped over the chair.
I should throw it away. I won't. Not yet. But I think about it.
I call Amanda at eight thirty. She answers on the second ring.
"You're calling me before nine on a Saturday so either someone died or Kirk did something."
"Kirk did something."
There's a pause. When she speaks again her voice is different. Lower. Serious. "Tell me."
I tell her everything. The Thai food. The patio door.
Kallie's voice. The pregnancy. The three months.
Kirk's words. All of it. I say it calmly and clearly because I've been rehearsing it in my head since last night and by now the words come out flat and factual.
I sound like I'm reading a report at work.
File number whatever. Subject: the complete destruction of Brook Walker's personal life.
Amanda doesn't interrupt. She lets me finish. When I'm done she's quiet for about five seconds which is a very long time for Amanda to be quiet about anything.
"I'm coming over," she says. "Right now. Don't argue with me."
"I need to get my stuff out of his apartment first. He has the open house today so he won't be there."
"Then I'm coming over and then we're going to his apartment and then we're getting your stuff. Do you have a key?"
"Yes."
"Good. I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Put your shoes on."
She hangs up before I can respond. That's Amanda. She processes bad news faster than anyone I've ever known. By the time she gets to my house she'll already have a plan and a list and probably a box of garbage bags.
She arrives in twelve minutes. She walks through my front door without knocking and wraps her arms around me. She holds on for a long time and doesn't say anything. Then she steps back and looks at me and her jaw is tight and her eyes are hard.
"I have a lot of things I want to say about Kirk Reed right now but I'm going to save them for later because right now we have work to do. How much of your stuff is at his place?"
I think about it. "Some clothes. My extra work shoes. Toiletries. A few books. The blanket my mom made me. Some kitchen things I brought over. Maybe three or four boxes worth."
"Okay. I have boxes and bags in my car. Let's go."
We drive to Kirk's apartment in Amanda's car.
She doesn't play music. She grips the steering wheel with both hands and her knuckles are white.
Every few minutes she starts to say something and then stops herself.
I appreciate the effort. I know what she wants to say.
She's been worried about Kirk for years.
She's never trusted him completely and she's told me so in careful doses when she thought I could handle it.
She was right. She's always been right. But being right doesn't fix anything and she knows that too.
We park in the lot and I use my key to let us in through the front door.
Kirk's apartment is clean and organized because Kirk has always been particular about his living space.
That used to impress me. Now I wonder if it was just another form of control.
Everything in its proper place. Including me.
We work quickly. Amanda brought four large boxes and a roll of garbage bags.
I go through the bedroom first. My clothes from the closet.
My shoes from the floor. A necklace from the nightstand.
My phone charger. A framed photo of us that I look at for two seconds and then put face-down in the box.
In the bathroom I grab my shampoo and conditioner and the small basket of hair products and makeup that I keep under the sink.
Amanda handles the kitchen. She packs up the mixing bowls I brought from home and the good knife set that I bought us for our anniversary two years ago and the coffee maker that Kirk never used because he prefers gas station coffee.
"This coffee maker cost you a hundred and forty dollars," Amanda says from the kitchen. "I remember because I was with you when you bought it."
"It's mine. I'm taking it."
"Good."
In the living room I find a sweater draped over the back of the couch.
Mine. A pair of reading glasses I thought I'd lost. Mine.
A book about regional wildflowers that I bought at a flea market last spring.
Mine. Each item goes into a box. Each one is small and ordinary and forgettable on its own but together they tell me how little space I was ever given here.
Years of fitting myself into someone else's life without ever being offered room of my own.
Amanda finds the blanket my mother crocheted for me in the hall closet. It's folded neatly on the top shelf next to Kirk's winter coat. "Got it," she says and tucks it carefully into one of the boxes.
I check every room twice. Under the bed.
Behind the bathroom door. The top of the refrigerator where I sometimes left my sunglasses.
I don't want to have to come back here. I don't want any reason to walk up these stairs again or put a key in this lock or stand in this apartment pretending it was ever a place where I belonged.
We finish in about forty minutes. I take one last look around the apartment from the front door.
Nine years and my entire presence here fits into four boxes and two garbage bags.
That should probably make me sad but instead it makes me realize how little space I was ever given in Kirk's life.
He kept me at the margins. Close enough to be useful.
Far enough away that he could do whatever he wanted without me noticing.
I leave the key on the kitchen counter. I thought about keeping it. I thought about mailing it to him or leaving it on the windshield of his truck or just throwing it in the trash. But leaving it on the counter seems right. Simple and clean. No drama. No message. Just an ending.
Amanda carries the boxes down the stairs and I follow her with the bags.
We load everything into her car and pull out of the parking lot and I don't look back.
Not at the apartment. Not at the stairs I climbed last night with two bags of Thai food and a belief that my relationship was something worth saving.
I just look straight ahead through the windshield and let Amanda drive us home.
At my house we unload everything into the spare bedroom.
Amanda stacks the boxes neatly against the wall and lines up the garbage bags next to them.
Then she goes to my kitchen and opens the bottle of wine that's been sitting on the counter since I bought it for Kirk earlier in the week.
She pours two glasses and brings them to the living room.
"Sit down," she says. "We need to talk about what happens next."
I sit on the couch and take the glass. I'm not sure I want wine right now but holding it gives my hands something to do. Amanda sits across from me in the armchair and tucks her legs under her.
"First thing," she says. "Do not call him. Do not text him. Do not answer when he calls. You don't owe him a conversation right now."
"I know."
"Second thing. You need a lawyer."
"For what? We're not married."
"It doesn't matter. You have shared finances. You told me you put money into a joint savings account. You cosigned on something last year. A credit card I think."
"Two credit cards."
"Two credit cards. Brook." Amanda takes a slow breath. "You need a lawyer. Someone who can look at everything and tell you exactly where you stand financially and what you need to do to protect yourself."
"Do you know anyone?"
"Fiona Grant. She has an office on Davis Street. She handled my cousin's divorce two years ago and she was incredible. Calm and thorough and she didn't let anything slip through the cracks. I'll get you her number."
"Okay."
"Third thing." Amanda leans forward. "You need to tell your mom."
That one hits harder than the rest. My mother has always liked Kirk.
She's never said a bad word about him even though I suspect she's had private concerns over the years.
She welcomed him into holidays and family dinners and trusted me when I told her we were happy.
Telling her what happened means admitting to her and to myself that almost a decade of my life was built on something that wasn't real.
"I'll tell her tomorrow," I say.
"Tell her today. She'll want to be there for you and the sooner you let her the better you'll feel."
Amanda stays for another hour. We drink the wine slowly.
She asks me practical questions. Do I have access to the joint savings account online?
Yes. Do I have copies of the credit card statements?
I think so. Do I know how much debt Kirk has carried on those shared cards?
No. I don't. That realization unsettles me more than I want to admit.
I've been trusting Kirk with our shared money the same way I trusted him with everything else.
Without question. Without verification. Because I believed that people who love you don't lie to you about money.