A year passed. The city stayed the same and I did not. I moved into a smaller apartment that I chose myself, with a window that got the morning light, and I filled it with things that were mine. I made new friends and I kept the old ones. Lena got engaged to Julian and asked me to be her maid of honor. My mother came to visit and stayed for a week and we did not talk about my father, and I realized that not talking about him was also a way of honoring something.
I saw Marcus once from across a street, six months after the park. He was walking with someone I did not recognize. He looked the same. He did not see me. I felt nothing, which I took as a sign that the leaving had worked.
The notebook went into a box. I labeled the box with a word that meant nothing to anyone but me. Sometimes I
