237 Ks Zero Fs Chapter 22 Three years later. London. The award-winning bridge project brought me to Seattle for an international symposium. After the conference, I drove a rental car. Almost by instinct, I went to Capitol Hill. Our old townhouse had been painted pale blue by the new owners. Unfamiliar flowers bloomed by the

237 Ks Zero Fs Chapter 21 Half a month later. Early spring in London. In my office by the Thames, I signed for an international package from Seattle. Inside was a final divorce decree signed by a judge, and the attached marital property division agreement. According to the agreement, he’d waived all rights and unconditionally

237 Ks Zero Fs Chapter 20 In the end, it was the landlord, coming to demand overdue rent, who found Conor collapsed in a pool of his own blood, reeking of decay. The ambulance rushed him to Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center—the same hospital where he should have been standing vigil at my bedside three years

237 Ks Zero Fs Chapter 19 After he was discharged, Conor didn’t go back to the U.S. He brought a sleeping bag and moved directly into the hallway of my old Victorian apartment building. His frostbitten right hand was wrapped in bandages. The space where his ring finger should have been was empty. I didn’t

237 Ks Zero Fs Chapter 18 The cast-iron grate was narrow. The ring disappeared into the dark channel below. Not even the sound of it landing. Then I went upstairs, locked the door, and went to sleep. The next morning when I left, Conor was kneeling at the drainage grate. He’d found a crowbar somewhere

237 Ks Zero Fs Chapter 17 By the time I woke, the sky was almost light. Conor was still standing rigidly in front of the kitchen island, his eyes a terrifying mess of burst blood vessels. He stared at the braised beef rolling in the Le Creuset dutch oven with a fixed, unblinking gaze. I