Breaking Point

Two days passed without a sound from upstairs.

No music. No footsteps crossing the ceiling at uneven hours. No careless knock at my door asking for sugar or company or any other thin excuse. The silence should have restored the shape of my evenings. Instead it left a different kind of disturbance in its place an attention that kept drifting upward against my will, listening for a life that had temporarily gone missing.

I told myself the quiet was an improvement.

I nearly believed it on the first day.

By the second the lie had worn thin.

Work filled the hours without fully occupying them. I answered emails,...