On moving day, Owen brought his pickup and helped carry my suitcase, office chair, and a few boxes from the hotel. We stopped for sandwiches and ate on the apartment floor because I had not unpacked any plates. He asked whether I wanted to buy a proper couch that weekend. I said I would wait until I knew what furniture I was bringing from the townhouse. He nodded and said, 'It is strange, but that is the first decision you have made lately that doesn't come with a spreadsheet.'
I laughed, then realized he was wrong only because I had a note on my phone listing possible couches. We both laughed harder than the joke deserved. After he left, the apartment fell quiet. I stood in the kitchen holding a paper bag full of groceries and tried to remember when I had last chosen food without considering Lauren's preferences. I bought pasta, chicken, bananas, and the cereal she had always disliked. It was a small and ridiculous pleasure to put the cereal on my own shelf.
The shared townhouse remained more complicated. I needed to collect winter clothes, books, kitchen equipment, and the old desk my father had helped me restore. Lauren had not agreed to a pickup date. She sent messages saying that I was turning her home into a warehouse and that she did not want me arriving without warning. I agreed not to arrive unannounced and proposed two afternoons when she would be at work. I also offered to have Owen accompany me so neither of us would later feel that the encounter had happened without witnesses.
She replied that bringing a friend would make her feel accused. I said we could instead ask Carmen, the property manager, to coordinate access, but that I would not enter while Lauren was home and upset. After several exchanges, we agreed on a Wednesday afternoon. The exchange was formal and awkward, but it was an agreement. I saved it and arranged for Owen to wait outside rather than walk through the house.
I went back to the townhouse after lunch. The street looked exactly as it had on the morning I left, with sprinklers clicking across neighboring lawns and a delivery truck stopped beside the curb. My key still worked. I entered slowly, announced myself in case Lauren's schedule had changed, and received no answer. I stood in the entryway for a moment, listening to the refrigerator hum and the clock tick in the living room.
There were fewer photographs on the walls. Our engagement portrait had been taken down from the hallway, leaving a pale rectangle where the sun had faded the paint around its frame. The vase of dried flowers on the dining table was gone. A stack of wedding magazines sat in a recycling bin beside the kitchen island. The room was not damaged or chaotic; it simply looked as though someone had begun removing references to a future that no longer existed.