The house stops pretending it's a museum when a man starts to sob in it. After a while the sound runs out. Marcus sits very still on the edge of my bed with the journal splayed open, breath sanded down to the little hiss of someone who has run out of arguments.
He puts a finger on the line I wrote with a hand that shook—*I wanted ugly carpet and four dogs and your terrible toast*—and whispers like he's reciting a crime.
“I loved you," he says to paper. The confession lands and doesn't bounce. “Too late."
His phone vibrates against his thigh. He doesn't look. It buzzes again, insistent. Third time.
He answers, voice raw. “What."
“Sir." Aaron. Calm pulled taut. “I need you to hear this first from me."
“I'm not in the mood for condolences."
“It isn't that." A beat. “It's Vivian."
Sile
