LENA

It was the book that told me.

Not a person. Not a moment with weight and ceremony and the specific quality of an occasion that announced itself as significant. A book. A Thursday afternoon in late February with the particular quality of a winter day that had decided, without committing to the decision, to gesture toward something warmer, the light at a slightly different angle than it had been the week before, the air on the rooftop carrying the specific and tentative quality of a season that was considering its options.

I had been on the rooftop for an hour and forty minutes.

I knew this because I had...