By the second landing her face had gone pale. I offered my arm without speaking, and for a stubborn second she ignored it. Then she took it. Her hand was light on my sleeve, and that small touch carried more trust than I deserved.

At her door she fumbled with the keys. One still had the little house-shaped keychain we’d bought years ago at a street fair — we’d laughed when we bought it, because we didn’t own a house yet.

We only had the dream of one. A dream with a porch. A tiny garden. A yellow nursery neither of us dared mention after the second loss.

The apartment was small but unmistakably hers. A blue scarf over the back of a chair. Books in careful stacks beside the couch. A chipped daisy mug near the sink.

Watercolor prints on the walls, all quiet landscapes — a lake at dawn, a path through birch trees, a porch facing rain.

There were no photographs of us. No wedding picture. No vacation snapshot. No visible proof I’d ever belonged to her life.