For hours after she’d watched Chollie walk down the gravel drive, Mathilde sat in the kitchen. Night fell and she didn’t turn on the lights. For dinner, she opened a bottle of gift wine from some producer of Lotto’s play years ago, wildly expensive and smoky and lingering on her tongue. When the bottle was finished, she stood and went all the way up to her husband’s studio at the top of the house. His jade plant, so long neglected, had blackened. His books were splayed, wide-winged around the room, his papers were still spread on the desk.
