Sisters and Husbands by Connie Briscoe Read Free Book Online Page A

something as innocent as Kevin straightening out his closet. She certainly
     hoped so. But she needed to shake this nagging thought.
    She entered the house from the side door, walked through the disarranged kitchen, and headed up the stairs to the bedroom.
     Kevin was likely in the recreation room, watching a movie. She moved quickly to his closet and opened the door.
    Her eyes scanned the large closet and finally focused on two black suitcases and a black leather duffel bag in a corner. Kevin
     normally stored his luggage on the shelves at the top of the closet; they looked out of place there on the floor. She stepped
     inside, lifted one of the bags, and was surprised to realize that it was not empty. She lifted the other two. Same thing.
     All three bags were packed.
    She stooped down and opened the duffel bag to find Kevin’s socks, underwear, and toiletries. She placed one of the suitcases
     flat on the floor and flipped it open. It was packed with Kevin’s clothes—slacks, shirts, sweaters. She was about to open
     the third bag when she heard a sound behind her. She turned to see Kevin standing in the doorway to his closet, a scowl on
     his face.
    “What the hell are you doing?” he asked gruffly.
    “You mean, what the hell are
you
doing?” she countered. “What is all this?” She gestured toward the bags.
    “What the fuck does it look like?” he snapped.
    She frowned. “Are you going on a trip?”
    “You could say that. A permanent one.”
    She was dumbfounded. Did he mean what she thought he meant? She was too afraid to ask, too afraid of the response she might
     get.
    “I’m leaving and I won’t be back,” he said pointedly, as if he sensed her reluctance to go there and wanted to get it all
     out.
    Evelyn stumbled from the closet and back into the bedroom. She didn’t need to hear this, not now. Not ever. Yes, they were
     going through a rough patch. But leaving? How had it come to this? She faced him as he exited the closet. “You can’t be serious.”
    “I’m very serious. I’ve had it with all this, Evelyn.” He jerked an arm through the air, indicating the spacious master bedroom
     and bath, with the matching designer bed linen and drapes, the soaking tub and the Kohler bath fixtures. “The kitchen remodeling—that’s
     the last straw. I can’t deal with this crap anymore. Or I won’t.”
    Evelyn stared at him. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This antimaterialistic fad he was going through—quitting
     his job, giving away all this clothes, shaving his head—was one thing. Now he was about to walk out on her? On two and a half
     decades of sharing their lives, with absolutely no warning whatsoever?
    “You wanted all of this as much as I did until recently, Kevin,” she protested, struggling to keep her voice calm. “You seem
     to forget that. Now all of a sudden you decide you don’t like it anymore, and you think you can just pack and split? That’s
     not right.”
    “What’s not right is this lifestyle.” He gritted his teeth. “Make more, want more, buy more. Trying to act white. That’s all
     you fucking care about now, Evelyn. You didn’t used to be like this.
I
didn’t used to be like this. Sadly, this is what our lives have become.”
    Evelyn watched in horror as he walked back into the closet, grabbed the two suitcases, and placed them on the floor in the
     bedroom. He went to retrieve the duffel bag, and it was all she could do to keep from grabbing the suitcases and putting everything
     back in the drawers and closet where it belonged.
    “You’re leaving now?” she asked when he came back out. “Right this minute?”
    He sighed. “I was going to tell you this tonight and leave later in the week, but I figure I might as well go now.”
    She swallowed hard. “But… where will you stay?”
    “I rented an apartment in College Park, but I can’t move in until Wednesday. I’ll just stay in a hotel until then.”
    He hastily changed into a fresh