At two in the afternoon I caught the crosstown bus out to the neighborhood on Oak Street.

I walked up the driveway past the empty garage, stepping carefully over the gravel path that led around to the side kitchen door.

I went to the side door so I wouldn’t have to stand on the front porch where Julian had locked me out three weeks earlier.

The small square window in the top panel of the side door was clear, and through the glass I could see Leo’s little yellow rain boots by the shoe rack where I had put them in October.

I knocked twice on the heavy oak frame.