I stood in the doorway and looked at it one last time, the place where I had brought my daughter home from the hospital four months before, full of hope, and then I turned off the light and closed the door.

I felt, doing it, none of the drama I might have expected, no trembling final-scene emotion.

I felt calm, and tired, and oddly light, the specific lightness of setting down a weight you have carried so long you forgot it was optional.

Everything I loved was already at my brother’s house or in the boxes in his truck.

Everything I was leaving behind in that apartment was just furniture, just objects, just the stage set of a life that had turned out to be mostly performance.

I had thought, when Mason and I first started packing, that emptying my home would feel like loss.