For one brief moment, I wondered if he’d come after me. He didn’t.

I drove toward downtown with no destination in mind. Most restaurants were closed, grocery-store lots nearly empty, families crossing the streets carrying foil-covered dishes while early Christmas songs drifted from the radio.

Eventually I checked into a small hotel near the airport. The young clerk at the front desk wore a paper turkey pinned to her sweater.

“Traveling for the holiday?” she asked.

“Something like that.”

The room had a king bed, a chair by the window, and a framed photograph of an empty coastline. I slipped off my shoes and turned off my phone. For the first time in years, I slept without waiting for Daniel’s key in the lock, without wondering if the dishwasher had been loaded, without calculating when the turkey needed another layer of foil.