Norman

The apartment was too quiet after she left.

I sat on the couch and stared at nothing in particular. The television was still on, but I wasn’t watching it. The plates were still on the coffee table from dinner, and the basil she’d brought was sitting in a glass of water on the counter because she hadn’t found a vase and had done that instead without making a fuss about it.

She hadn’t made a fuss about anything, actually. She’d come over with groceries and cooked and laughed and asked one simple question, and I had yelled at her like she’d done something unforgivable. She hadn’t even raised her...