He threw boiling coffee in my face at breakfast because I refused to give my bank card to his sister.

I moved back into the apartment on a Saturday.

Rosa helped me carry things up from the car.

She had borrowed a rolling cart from the building's storage room and refused to let me carry the heavy boxes.

"You carried enough already," she said.

"Let the cart do it."

The apartment was exactly as I had left it, except that the wedding ring was gone from the dining table.

The police had logged it as part of the documentation.

The medical report copy was gone too.

The table was bare.

I stood in the middle of the living room for a moment.

Rosa stood beside me.

She didn't say anything.

"It's strange," I said.

"I thought it would feel different.

Coming back."

"How does it feel?"

"Like mine," I said.

"Just mine."

Rosa nodded.

"Good," she said.

"That's the right answer."

We unpacked until late afternoon.

Rosa stayed for dinner — I made pasta with what was left in the pantry, which wasn't much, but it was enough.

We ate at the dining table.

The same table.

And it was just a table.

After she left, I washed the dishes and stood at the kitchen window looking out at Edgewater in the early evening.

The bay was visible between two buildings — a strip of dark water catching the last light.

I had bought this apartment at thirty-one.

Alone.

Eight years of logistics work, every bonus, every dollar.

I had stood in this kitchen the first night I owned it and felt something I couldn't name — a kind of quiet pride, the particular satisfaction of a thing that was entirely, completely yours.

Derek had never owned any part of it.

His name was not on the deed.

His name was not on anything that mattered.

I had forgotten that, somewhere in four years of marriage.

I had started to think of the apartment as ours, and in doing so I had started to think of myself as half of something rather than the whole of something.

My phone rang.

I looked at the screen.

Marisol.

I answered.

"I wanted to let you know," she said.

"The property transfer went through today.

The house is officially mine.

Clean." A pause.

"I keep looking at the paperwork and I can't quite believe it."

"Believe it," I said.

"Reyes called me this morning.

She said Derek entered a plea." A pause.

"Did you know?"

"She called me too."

"License revoked.

Financial penalties.

Three years supervised release." Marisol was quiet for a moment.

"I thought I'd feel something bigger.

When I heard.

But mostly I just felt—"

"Tired," I said.

"Yes.

Tired." A pause.

"And relieved.

Mostly relieved."

"Me too."

Outside, the strip of bay had gone dark.

The lights of the buildings across the water reflected in long, broken lines.

"Camille said a new word today," Marisol said.

Her voice changed when she said it — lighter, almost surprised by itself.

"She said *more.* She wanted more of her dinner and she just — said it.

Clear as anything."

I smiled.

"That's a good first word."

"It really is." A pause.

"I think we're going to be okay.

Me and her.

I think we're going to figure it out."

"I think so too," I said.

We said goodnight.

I set the phone on the counter.

The apartment was quiet.

My apartment.

The bay outside.

The lights.

The ordinary sounds of the building settling around me.

I filled a glass of water and carried it to the living room and sat on the couch — my couch, in my apartment, in a life that was entirely, completely mine again.

I didn't think about Derek.

I didn't think about Patricia or Suzanne or the conference room or the fourteen months of silence.

I thought about Camille, saying *more* over her dinner with perfect clarity.

And I thought: yes.

More.

Exactly that.

More mornings that are only mine.

More evenings at this window.

More dinners at that table with Rosa.

More of this quiet, which is not emptiness — it is space.

Space I made.

Space I kept.