Work the following morning was hell: first, I didn’t put enough water in the coffeepot, and the coffee burned and made the office reek. Then Leslie got on my case for not answering the phone within two rings. By lunch, I was tempted to say I was having uncontrollable diarrhea and needed to go home.
But none of that mattered with Liam’s silence hanging over us both. He hadn’t even told me goodbye this morning. Even as grumpy as he was in the morning, he always said that when I left. I’d gotten so used to that husbandly gesture that when I hadn’t heard it today, I’d almost started crying.
“Too bad I can’t drink at work,” I said to myself as I made a cup of tea in the break room. I made a point to choose the tea that needed to steep the longest, just to avoid having to go back to my office.
