The answer was smaller and sadder than any theory I invented that night. Consuelo cleaned offices. One of them belonged to the firm handling Gregory’s refinancing. For eleven months she had emptied bins beside a man who took loud phone calls after hours, and the first time she heard him say my name she stopped moving in the middle of the floor. She had found me on a registry four years earlier and had never once approached me. She told herself she was waiting for the right moment. Then she started hearing the wrong ones.
Gregory signed nothing the next day. The revocation reached the title company at 4:40 that afternoon, and the buyer’s deposit went back on Monday. He came home on Wednesday and found me sitting at the kitchen table with the listing printed out, all nine photographs, including one of Nora’s shelf. He tried three different explanations in under a minute. I did not interrupt any of them.
