There’s a space at the door where her shoes were that’s no longer filled. When I race into the bedroom, I see no laptop on the bedside table, no bag looped over the armchair. The bathroom counter has no toothbrush or Tom Ford perfume bottle. The air itself is screaming at me that she’s gone, gone, gone. It smells like lemon cleaning solution and nothing else.
No bergamot. No cherry. No Jillian.
I turn back out of the bedroom and charge up the hall. A woman is in the kitchen, but it’s not her. It’s the maid. She’s wearing earbuds and humming softly to herself as she scrubs the sink basin, her back to me, completely oblivious to the fact that I just blew through the front door like a f*****g wrecking ball.
She stops, half-turns, and frowns, then pulls out one earbud, unsure if she heard s
