Cedar rose from inside, clean and familiar.

I placed the jacket carefully and lowered the lid myself.

Nothing disappeared when it closed.

Lily remained my daughter.

I still remembered the paint on the cuff and the way she protested if a zip caught on her shirt.

The jacket no longer needed to stand in the hallway to make those things true.

Now, in the kitchen with the bakery bag on the counter, I looked at Ethan’s mug.

It had stayed by the sink through late summer, autumn, and the beginning of winter.