Chapter 55: Mary

The cream-colored silk wallpaper in my master bedroom cost eighty-four dollars a square, not including the specialized adhesive required to keep the seams from bubbling in the coastal humidity. I knew the exact figure because I had forced the decorator to revise the invoice three times before I authorized the bank draft from our secondary savings account.

Now, under the harsh glare of the bathroom’s vanity bulbs, the wallpaper just looked like a neutral backdrop to a slow-motion foreclosure.

Thomas sits on the edge of the mattress, his shoulders slumped forward at an angle that makes his designer linen shirt bunch up uncomfortably around his waist. He...