So I simply waved, and watched them go, and turned back toward a house that I did not yet know had just become too large.

A house sized for six becomes enormous when it holds two, and then, over the years, holds fewer, as daughters grow and go.

I had chosen this house with Lucas when the boys were small and loud and the noise filled every room of it, and I had loved how it was never quiet.

After that weekend the quiet moved in and never left, a quiet with weight and texture, a quiet you could almost see pooling in the corners of the rooms where the noise used to live.

I learned, slowly, to live inside it.