“Sometimes it just made it harder to remember the good parts.”

She was right.

During the first year after Elena died, I had moved everything into storage because each familiar object felt like an accusation: a sweater folded in the wrong place, a coffee mug waiting for someone who would never return.

Eventually I convinced myself that starting again meant setting those memories aside.

Leticia had entered a house where grief had made me ashamed of how badly I wanted another person to stay.

“I don’t want to put these away anymore,” I said.