Alex went into the kitchen, half-hoping that she would still be there, but she wasn’t. The tiny piece of optimism that had greeted him as he awoke vanished as if it had never existed. Last night, the coup de grâce, delivered with Diane’s usual dead-pan face, that she and Amy were going at the end of the week. Back to the U.K. “Amy will be staying at my mum’s,” she said, packing an overnight bag. “She’ll stay there until I can sort something out for us back home.” She zipped up the bag, eyes hard as ice and just as cold. “I’ll be back tomorrow at noon with a van to pick up the rest of my stuff. I’d appreciate it if you weren’t here.” She hefted the bag and went downstairs. He followed her, legs feeling like lead, a defeated man, no fight left in him. Standing at the bottom of the stairs, he
