Paula gave me two weeks off after the trial. I spent the first week in bed, sleeping twelve hours a night, and the second week walking, long walks along the bay, past the ferry building and the piers and the places where the city turned into water.
On the fourth day, I opened the box.
I had kept it all this time, through the move and the trial and the nights when I thought about setting it on fire. The watch was still in its wrapping. The tag was still in my handwriting. I sat on my bed and held it and thought about what it had cost me and what it had taught me.
It had cost me ten thousand dollars and an engagement. It had taught me that I had spent sixteen months loving a man who did not know how to receive anything he had not chosen himself. It had taught me that I had a habit, and th
