Sincerely,
Nora C. Hollis
She looked at it for a long time. Dear Ms. Castellano. She thought about all the things she could have written instead. Mom. How could you. Why. She thought about writing all of them and putting them in a drawer. Instead she folded the letter in thirds, sealed it, and gave it to Priya, who drove it to the post office and sent it certified, return receipt requested.
"She's going to know exactly what this means," Priya said when she came back.
"I know," Nora said. "That's the point. I want her to have to choose."
* * *
Grant came for his things on Wednesday.
Priya had arranged it through his lawyer—he had a lawyer now, a man named Doug Pruett from a firm in Roseville whose letterhead used three different fonts—and the terms were that he could come at ten in the morning, take his clothes, his laptop, and his personal effects, and be gone by eleven, and that Frank and Priya would be present. Nora was supposed to stay in the bedroom. She didn't. She sat on the couch in the front room with her feet on Leo's old ottoman and her hands folded on top of her belly, and when Grant came in the door with two empty duffel bags he stopped short at the sight of her.
He looked terrible. He hadn't shaved. His eyes were red-rimmed and puffy and he'd lost weight in five days, or seemed to have. He was wearing the gray Sac State sweatshirt she'd bought him on their first Christmas.
"Hi," he said.
She didn't say anything.
"You look—are you okay? Is she okay?"
"She's fine."