He stood there for a moment. Then he picked up the suitcase, stepped out into the cold night air, and turned once on the front path — the way people do when they are waiting for someone to call them back, to offer a reprieve, to say that none of it needs to be this final.
I did not call him back.
I closed the door.
I turned the lock.
And then I stood with my back against it in the silence of a house that was entirely my own again, and I let that feeling settle into every room.
The candle on the dining table had burned almost all the way down. The wine glass I had poured for myself earlier was still sitting where I had left it, untouched.
I picked it up, walked to the window, and stood there in the quiet for a long time.
Some evenings end the way you planned them.
Others end the way they need to.
