Three weeks later, the morning light coming through my fourth-floor window fell across the oak floorboards in broad yellow squares.

My new one-bedroom apartment smelled of fresh pine trim and clean winter air.

A glass vase of yellow carnations sat on the windowsill, brought over by Rachel on her lunch break two days after I moved my boxes in.

My oak dining table, brought out of the Columbus storage locker where it had sat since spring, took up most of the small dining room.

I ran my palm over the smooth wood of the table, feeling the small notch near the edge where Mark had dropped his toy truck thirty-five years ago.