18
Eric couldn’t believe the hovel Abby had chosen to live in. The questions in his mind were coming too fast. How was it better to live in a slum, with the worst of the worst around her, than with him and his kids?
“What are you living off of, Abby?” was the only thing he could think to ask. He didn’t like where his thoughts were going—or the fact that the slimy caretaker downstairs had been anywhere near his wife.
Her eyes were red and swollen, her eyelids puffy from all the crying she’d done since he had arrived. She ran the back of her hand over her nose, which was running, and then sniffed. “I got a job,” she said as she hiccuped. She gestured nervously toward the grimy window. “Just down the street, there’s a coffee shop. I’m waiting tables.”
“Waiting tables in some two-bit greas
