Page 16 of Room 4 Rent

The most commonly thrown pitch in baseball is a pitch meant to be thrown very fast. There are different variations of fastballs.

SYDNEY

“I can’t believe my credit card isn’t working.” I toss my wallet on the table, kicking off my heels. “Debit card. Nothing. What the fuck am I supposed to do?” Not only that, I couldn’t even pay for Collin’s funeral. Imagine that. After the Starbucks incident, I can’t say I’m entirely surprised by it.

The worst part, his parents had to because I’ve basically been cut off.

And it’s not like I’m a housewife living off my husband’s money. I have my own money that goes into those accounts from my business.

Word to the wise, sisters, if you’re thinking about getting a joint account with your husband, or significant other, think twice. Or at least have the passwords and know at all times what’s going on. I thought, he’s a banker. It’s fine.

Riiiiight?

Ha. Fucking. Ha, bruh. Don’t do it.

Nahla takes the bowl of popcorn she’d made for her and Tatum in her hand. “I can check with Kenneth and see what you can do to access your accounts.”

“Okay.” Nahla’s been my best friend since high school when as a senior, she took the dorky freshman art student under her wing. Now she’s an attorney and her husband is a pediatrician. Though he probably can’t hack into my bank account without the official death notice I haven’t received in the mail yet, his brother might be able to. He’s a manager at the bank Collin worked for.

Nahla stirs the popcorn around in the bowl, adding a dash of salt to it. “It’s weird that your name isn’t on them and he didn’t have any of the passwords written down.”

Weird? That doesn’t even begin to describe this last week. So many other adjectives come to mind. Like fucked up. That’s an adjective, right?

“Where’s the good shit?” Sadie, my younger sister, is in the kitchen digging through the liquor cabinet, black dress a little too high to be appropriate for a funeral. “I know Collin had some expensive wine in here somewhere.”

“In the back on the left,” I add, staring at the papers covering the table. What a mess.

Two hours ago, I laid my husband to rest, and though I’ve cried more in the last week than I have in the last five years, now there are no tears. They’ve dried, and I’m left with this emptiness I can’t find a home for. It hangs in the air, waiting to be filed in the “okay, this is what we’re doing now” category.

While Nahla gets Tatum settled with a movie and popcorn, the doorbell rings. Considering my only living family member, Sadie, is with me, I’m guessing this isn’t a death notice.

With my own bottle of wine in hand, I take it to the door with me. It’s Amos. My neighbor. He asks me once a day if I’m okay and brings over food. Despite my shitty attitude of no thank you, go take your pleasant ass somewhere else, I thank him, take the casserole his wife made, and set it on the counter with the others that we haven’t eaten yet.

“Who was at the door?” Emmie asks. She hasn’t left our sides since Friday. It’s been a week since the news. I feel worse than a hot mess. I’m a dumpster fire.

“Neighbor. Another casserole.”

Emmie shuts the door to the fridge after retrieving a diet Coke. “Why can’t they bring something snatched. Like cake pops. Those are lit.”

“Probably because they know I’m going to eat my feelings.” I flip through the life insurance forms. I can’t fathom that here I am, five days from the day, and still unable to comprehend that he’s gone, and I’m referring to him in the past tense.

The days that follow Collin’s death are an absolute blur. My tears fall harder than the words around me. They tell me he died instantly, or within seconds of the impact. He ran off the road, and apparently, his self-driving car couldn’t correct it. It doesn’t really hit me until the viewing at the funeral home. The first time I saw him, the stillness that followed, I don’t think I will ever forget that moment between us. It was as if his arms were wrapped around me, giving me the courage to continue.

I’m given a bag with his belongings and what he had on him at the time.

His briefcase. Wallet. Phone. And… a condom. In his motherfucking wallet.

It sits with me for days. Why’d he have that in there? I’ve been on birth control pills since we had Tatum because I wasn’t anywhere near ready to have another baby. Yet he carried condoms?

Uneasiness had settled into my bones, a bitter taste of betrayal surfacing, and that’s all I had now—the constant nagging feeling that Collin had been cheating on me, but I’ve no way of asking him.

As I’m filling out the paperwork for the life insurance and wading through a mountain of debt we’ve accumulated, I think about the condom in his wallet. It weighs down on my chest, like a crushing sensation I can’t get out from under.

I can’t surface from it, and I don’t recall a single conversation or event since last week. I shut down my shop for three weeks to deal with the nightmare that is my life now. But other than that post on my Instagram page that has close to half a million likes, I haven’t surfaced back to reality. There are bits and pieces that come to mind, but nothing remarkable.

No words that move or comfort. I find in the wake of death, it’s not the ones who offer their condolences but the ones who stand with you in the days that come after that make a difference.

My tribe.

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