It was harder than I expected. There were pale rectangles on the walls where the pictures had hung for fifty years. The wedding photo. The little girl on the swing. The man with the bow tie and the fish. The wallpaper around them had faded, and the rectangles underneath were brighter, like
ghosts.
The kitchen calendar was gone. It had hung by the phone for eight years. Every Thursday, there was a little C written on it in her perfect cursive. I used to see it and feel something I couldn’t name.
I kept reaching to move things that weren’t there anymore. I went to lift the picture frames off the piano, and there was no piano. I went to straighten the guest towels, and there were no towels. I went to check the sticky drawer, and the drawer was empty, and it slid open without sticking at all,
