The Enchiladas I Took to His Ex

The Pan

I got off at three. I drove to the grocery store and bought chicken thighs, a can of green chile sauce, two packages of corn tortillas, a block of Monterey Jack, and sour cream. I had onions at home.

I made them the way Kaden liked them, the green kind, not the red, with extra cheese on top that goes brown and crisp at the corners. My grandmother would have made a hotdish. I do not know why enchiladas felt right, except that they were the one thing I knew for certain that boy would eat.

I covered the pan with foil and crimped the edges down hard so it would not slide in the car. Shane was at work until midnight. I did not text him. I did not leave a note. I was still in my navy quilted vest and my gray long-sleeve shirt from the elevator, my hair pulled back in a ponytail, and I did not think about changing.

It is eighteen miles from Adrian to Worthington on the interstate. I drove it with the pan on the passenger seat and one hand on the foil every time I hit a frost heave.

I had been to Crystal’s duplex exactly once, two summers before, to drop off a backpack Kaden forgot. I had stayed in the car. It was on a short street on the north side of town, a cream-colored duplex with a glass storm door and a single concrete step.

The little patch of yard was mostly dirty snowbanks this time of year, gray and pitted from a whole winter of plowing.

I parked on the street. I sat there for maybe two minutes with the engine running, and I thought about turning around.

Then I thought about the napkin, and I got out.