1975

The dining room ceiling in the empty house on Howard Road is stained Benson & Hedges brown, a shape of blooming flowers patterned like the Woodward & Lothrop dresses the once-married women wear when meeting a date on the Kennedy Center terrace. The bus goes straight down Wisconsin. The children have matching suitcases. Until the divorce goes through, two rooms and a galley kitchen at the Chevy Chase Arms, where afternoon light tints the lobby’s windows the same deep amber as uncasked bourbon.