In the kitchen, I checked the medication schedule, though I already knew it. I adjusted the lights. I moved a box oftools Caleb had left on the counter. Then I stood in the hallway, listening without appearing to listen.
Water ran briefly.
The chair motor hummed.
A cabinet door opened and shut.
Silence stretched.
I counted to twenty.
Before I reached twenty-one, the bathroom door opened.
Noah emerged looking irritated but upright.
“You survived.”
“Your faith is touching.”
“Any pain?”
“Normal amount.”
“Dizzy?”
“No.”
“Did you—”
“If you ask whether I completed every stage of urination successfully, I will reverse over your toes.”
I raised both hands.
He steered past me toward the final door.
The bedroom.
I had known this moment would come.
The room stood ready because I had spent three nights changing it and then undoing half the changes.
I had removed the rug but left the old cedar chest. Shifted the bedside table farther from the bed, then returned it when the empty space looked wrong. Cleared my clothes from one side ofthe wardrobe, yet left two sweaters Noah had worn more often than I did.
Our bed remained beneath the harbor-facing windows.
Fresh gray sheets.
Navy blanket.
The quilt Leah gave us one Christmas folded across the foot.
One pillow on each side, though only one person was meant to sleep there.
Noah stopped in the doorway.
The chair’s motor went silent.
I waited behind him.
