And one more thing.

I opened my email and found the PDF document Gloria Vance had sent me this afternoon.

The petition for divorce.

I would print it tomorrow.

I would laminate it.

And I would leave it right in the center of the dirt, stapled to a wooden stake.

He would have to walk onto my father’s land to read it.

He would have to stand in the dirt where his living room used to be.

I shifted the car into drive and turned around in the dirt driveway.

My headlights swept across the empty space where the front door had been twelve hours ago.

The tires crunched over the loose gravel.

I drove down the winding hill toward the main road.

The air outside was cool for a Texas evening, the humidity dropping as the sun went down.

I drove to the temporary apartment I had rented in downtown Austin.

It was a small, two-bedroom unit in a quiet complex near the river.

It smelled of fresh paint and clean carpets.

It was a stark contrast to the five-million-dollar estate in Westlake.