This is her apartment. She moved into it a few weeks after I left. That last night, she wrote down her new address in the corner of a paperback. She wanted me to write, but instead, every time I saw a copy of The Sun Also Rises, I just thought of how I wouldn’t know what to say.

Before I look at the street number, I know which building is hers. I’ve imagined this moment before. Many times. Every word that could be said, every word that could be left unsaid. And always, on the steps of this apartment. I sit in the truck and look at every window, trying to guess which one is hers by the curtains and potted plants. One is open with blue curtains hanging limp. Another, thin reds with dead potted plants balanced on the sill. The empty ones with torn screens or no screens at all. In every one, I imagine her, delicately balancing on a chair hanging a curtain rod or plucking red tomatoes from the window box for her salad in a wooden bowl on a small table in her kitchen. I know so little about her now.