Now I didn’t even know the street that held her bed.

“Ravenswood,” Sophie said quietly.

The neighborhood was only twenty minutes from my apartment. Twenty minutes. All this time she’d been close enough to pass in a grocery aisle or stand on the same train platform without knowing — yet I’d imagined her life as distant, because distance made the guilt easier to carry.

The elevator ride down felt longer than the divorce hearing. Sophie leaned against the rail, eyes closed, the cloth bag pressed to her chest. I wanted to ask a hundred questions.

When did the symptoms start? Who drove her to surgery? How long had she been afraid? Had she wished I was there? But her exhaustion answered enough.

Outside, the October wind moved dry leaves along the curb. I helped her into my car and she murmured a thank-you without looking at me. For a moment we just sat there — two people in a parked car, surrounded by everything they’d failed to say.