For a while neither of us spoke. Outside the window, Chicago moved on without us — cars sliding through late-afternoon traffic, people crossing the street with coffee cups and grocery bags, life continuing with impossible normalcy.

But in that hallway, everything I’d convinced myself was finished suddenly felt unfinished.

A nurse named Marisol arrived with discharge papers, medication instructions, and a cloth bag holding Sophie’s phone, cardigan, and shoes. Sophie signed each form slowly, the pen trembling between her fingers.

I remembered her handwriting from birthday cards and grocery lists — soft loops, careful spacing, little hearts sometimes drawn over the letter i when she was trying to make me laugh.

After the divorce I’d found a stack of her old notes in my desk drawer and couldn’t throw them away, so I’d put them in a shoebox under my bed, where they waited like evidence.

When Marisol asked for Sophie’s address, shame tightened around my throat. I didn’t know where she lived now. For five years I’d known everything about her daily life.