hospital, imagining how happy he’d be to see me.
Instead, I found Arnold on the verge of tears.
“Where’s Ben?” I asked again.
Arnold hesitated. “Chelsea, you should talk to him.”
“I plan to. Where is he? Is he in surgery?”
He pointed down the hall.
I walked away before he could say anything else.
The Folder on Ben’s Desk
Ben’s office door was partly open. I pushed it wider.
A folder lay open on his desk. One page showed an Oregon address. Another showed a start date six weeks away.
The office looked half-erased. Two shelves were bare. His books sat in boxes against the wall. The framed photo of Olive and me was wrapped in newspaper, and the mug she’d painted for him was already packed.
“Chelsea?”
I turned.
Ben stood in the doorway, holding a coffee.
I looked from him to the boxes. “You accepted a job
