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as he’d said the last, long past bothering to hide his displeasure in the way she looked and the fact that she didn’t seem to care that she was not a good advertisement for his skill with a knife.
    On the girls’ first day of school, she’d discovered that frayed capris and a faded Boston Red Sox T-shirt were not going to cut it in the Woodward Academy carpool line. But while she’d learned to make the time to dress more appropriately in the mornings, she’d continued to refuse to let him tweak or alter her. By then her imperfections were the only thing in their marriage that she still recognized.
    Now that she and Zachary were divorced, the school fees and expenses were the only checks that Zach wrote without begging or prodding. He religiously attended the PTA meetings and parent events not because he wanted to participate in his children’s lives but because Woodward Academy was the perfect place to mine for patients.
    Back in the condo, Brooke contemplated the breakfast dishes in the sink, the bulging bag of garbage that needed to be taken to the chute, and the pile of unopened bills that Zachary was supposed to pay, but didn’t.
To hell with it,
she thought as she pulled the pizza box from the refrigerator.
    Darcy wagged her tail hopefully. “Sorry, girl.” Brooke ate the last piece of pizza cold out of the box while she wandered around the condo. It was a beautiful, spacious three-bedroom unit, with wood floors, lots of windows, and high ceilings. Zach, flush with money for the first time in their married life and certain more was coming, had insisted on hiring a designer. As a result their home was long on style and short on warmth. For a few minutes she eyed the shiny surfaces and sharp angles and imagined how she might make the space cozier if and when she got the funds to do so.
    In the girls’ rooms, she picked up stray clothes and toys, then spent longer than she needed to arranging Ava’s stuffed animals on her bed.
    When she’d finished everything she was willing to do, it was barely nine a.m. The rainy morning stretched out in front of her long and empty. It was odd to have so much time on her hands after all the frantic years of working to support them while Zach finished college and then medical school. His residency had been the final hurdle, zapping her formidable reserves as she juggled two babies, two jobs, and a husband who was half asleep on the occasions when he was actually present. Like a long-distance runner in an important marathon she’d wheezed on, putting one foot in front of the other, her eyes and her will focused on the finish line.
    She stood motionless in front of the window staring out over the rain-splattered street wondering why it had never occurred to her that fulfilling Zachary’s dreams would end hers.
    “That’s enough.” She said it out loud just to be sure it got through. “Find something to do.” She couldn’t imagine going back down to the garage and leaving in the car. Where would she go anyway? They’d moved to Atlanta a year and a half ago and the first six months had been spent settling in; the second had been spent consumed by the divorce Zach had demanded. There’d been no time or energy to make friends or create a life that didn’t revolve around Zach or the girls. Now she had all the time in the world and no one to spend it with.
    “You’re going to leave the condo now.” She could go down and sit in the lobby and pretend she was waiting for . . . something. Maybe there’d even be someone down there to talk to. Or she could take the newspaper to the coffee shop next door. Except now that she’d had the leftovers from the girls’ breakfast and the overrated piece of pizza, she didn’t need to sit somewhere that served eggs, hash browns, and cheese grits.
    She considered the building’s other possibilities. It was too wet for the pool deck on the eighth floor, where she sometimes took the girls to run around and blow off steam. The