The first time Kevin and Karen Hart saw me again, they didn’t recognize me.
That is the particular cruelty of abandonment. The person left behind spends a lifetime carrying the moment like a stone worn smooth in the pocket, turning it over without meaning to, while the people who did the leaving treat it like a receipt they tossed years ago without bothering to read. They don’t carry it because for them there was nothing to carry. They simply walked away, and the walking was easy, and the ease is the thing you eventually have to make your peace with.
I was thirty-four years old, sitting at counsel table in Courtroom 23B, a red wool scarf folded in my lap even though the building’s heat was running full blast the way it always did in January. Across the aisle, Kevin and Karen were laughing quietly with their attorney as if they were already discussing what to do with money they were certain they were about to win.
They didn’t look haunted. They looked excited.
