The apartment was warm when we got back.
Warmer than I expected, warmer than the morning air outside which had been the particular clean cold of Paris before the city had fully committed to the day, and the warmth of it hit me when Matteo pushed the door open and I walked through it and felt the shift from outside to inside the way you feel it when inside means something, when it is not just a building but a specific place that has begun, without your permission and without any formal announcement, to feel like somewhere you belong.
I did not examine this feeling.
I was getting better at not examining feelings that were inconvenient. I had spent twenty three years developing this skill in my father's house where feelings that were examined became feelings that were visible and feelings
