Not Victoria’s crocodile handbag.
A twenty-dollar yellow makeup bag sitting beside my sink in a house where nobody told me how my face should look.
I never saw Victoria again.
Adrian and I spoke once after the divorce.
It happened by accident outside the courthouse after one of the final financial matters concluded.
He looked older.
So did I.
For several seconds we simply stood there.
Then he said, “You look well.”
I almost laughed at the irony.
Instead I said, “I am.”
He nodded.
“I meant what I wrote.”
“I know.”
“I did love you.”
“I know that too.”
Pain moved across his face.
Maybe he expected the words to comfort him.
They didn’t.
They weren’t cruel either.
They were simply true.
He looked down at the sidewalk.
“Doesn’t that mean anything?”
There it was.
The last version of the question that had haunted our entire marriage.
