I returned to my bungalow along the weed-choked path that Tyler first guided me down, flashlight in hand, trying to be as liminal as I had once felt. I wondered what Tyler had told the others about my sudden absence. That I was crazy, probably, that I was temperamental, that I could not control myself. Or perhaps nothing at all. Perhaps no one had anything to say about a woman they barely knew.

But they were gone. The houses were empty, the studios were locked up tight, except for Tyler’s. His station wagon was still parked in his carport.

As I crept into my bungalow, Tyler’s lights turned on. I saw him through the window, stretching, making coffee. I wanted to reach for him—and then I was washed over in heartbreak. He doesn’t love me, and he never will, I thought, suddenly, knowing that it was true, and with that one thought, the hurt turned to rot and worked its way into my muscles and tendons. He doesn’t love me, and he never will. Nobody does. A rancid fungus blossomed over the ventricles of my heart. He doesn’t love me, and he never will. Nobody does. Each repetition washed the thought into a fresh cell of my being, the thought souring one capillary at a time, until they were all ruined.

*  *  *

When Tyler left later that morning, there was no note tacked to my door, or “my” chair on the deck of the Mission. As I walked to his house, I reminded myself that he could very well come right back; he could be at the hardware store, or the grocery store, or at a friend’s house, but when I opened his door with one of Max’s forty keys, the trash under the sink was empty. The bed was made; the dishes washed.

He wouldn’t be back for days.

My plan was to snoop with a kind of reckless joy—toss the place—but I didn’t need to open a single drawer. Certified mail addressed to Pine City, LLC, from Cartwright, Benson and Pendergast, LLC, lay open on the counter.

Dear Messrs. Savage, Winsome, Wells and Mayfield,