What's Left Behind Read Online Free Page A

Maria’s reasons for divorcing him.
    Tears shone on the tips of her lashes. Rob jammed his hands in his pockets to quell the urge to brush them away. No longer his wife.
    “You promised. We’re not putting her through a third round of chemo. We’re not prolonging her suffering.”
    “I know what I said.” He also knew Maria had fought him on the first two rounds, each yielding months-long remissions.
    “Where’s the old girl?” he said, expecting Maria to head into the kitchen, where Bella’s flowered doggie bed sat next to her food and water bowls for easy access.
    Maria let out a laugh and angled her chin toward the stairway.
    “Grace?”
    “Yeah, couldn’t stop her. Freakishly strong, like her father.” Maria sliced her face away from him and started up the stairs, as though she were embarrassed by the expression’s association with Rob. Pride in their daughter was a given.
    “Hope that doesn’t earn her a freakishly strong hernia,” he said, imagining his eighteen-year-old daughter trudging up the stairs, carrying their seventy-pound golden retriever in her arms like a baby.
    Rob followed Maria up the stairway he could navigate in the dark. His hand skimmed the salvaged mahogany banister he’d sanded and buffed until it shone. At the landing, morning filtered through the reclaimed stained glass he installed days after they’d closed on the property. The sunlight cast ruby and gold diamonds against Maria’s long dark hair, down the curves of female topography his hands knew by heart. If he reached out to touch her, would she stop him?
    After twenty years of marriage, how did you remember to forget?
    He walked past Grace’s hall-of-fame photo gallery, her favorites in a row. Grace’s senior prom photo, his daughter beaming in a frilly blue dress, arm linked with her just-a-friend date. Grace in her various sports team group shots: field hockey, basketball, and track-and-field players Rob knew by name.
    And then, right before Grace’s closed door, instead of Rob and Maria’s eight-by-ten wedding portrait, a giant empty space.
    “What the hell?”
    Maria flushed and held a hand to her cheek.
    Rob brushed his fingers across the lighter-than-the-rest rectangle. “Ought to cover it with one of the graduation photos.”
    Maria offered him a tight-lipped half smile, the same condolence-laden expression making the rounds in answer to news of their divorce. “You’re right.” She gave the door a single tap with her knuckles and then turned the knob.
    A blast of sour-sick dog odor hit him in the face, and his eyes watered.
    Grace sat cross-legged on the floor, wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and unlaced Converses. Same outfit she was wearing last night when he’d taken her out for Chinese. Grace’s dark hair fell around her shoulders; Bella’s face lay in her lap. The old dog opened her eyes. Her brown gaze trained on Rob, as if she’d chosen him from all other humans, same as the day he’d taken her home curled on his lap.
    Rob knelt on one knee, offered Bella his hand. “Hey, girl, how you doing?”
    “She seems real sad.” His daughter’s shadowed eyes told him she was speaking about herself as much as their dog.
    Worst feeling in the world.
    Rob nodded and stroked Bella’s head. He thought of the day he’d handed the warm bundle to Grace, the joy in her six-year-old eyes.
    Best feeling in the world.
    Rob breathed through his mouth. “Call the vet?” he asked Maria.
    Maria leaned against the doorway, arms crossed. She chewed her bottom lip, a nervous habit that had worn away the center pigment. Any other day, lipstick would’ve covered the blank spot. “He’s waiting for you.”
    Grace’s mouth fell open. She shook her head, a subtle side-to-side motion, hinting at the horror of understanding. “No.” She clutched Bella, and the dog’s forelegs splayed beneath her. A yip scratched from Bella’s throat.
    Rob tilted his head, peered beneath Grace’s hair. “Shh, it’s okay. Don’t