We’ve had our laughs, haven’t we? And our cries, too. Of course, there were always things we couldn’t say to each other. Maybe they were things we knew, things we didn’t have to say. I’d like to think that was the case. I’d like to believe that explanation.

I miss you already. Your shining face, your occasional supportive comment, the fact that you were there when I was here. We had this moment in the ether. It was ours.

I won’t stay away forever. I couldn’t. There’s something I have to do. But I’ll be back.

Maybe in a month or so.

The lamp in the living room needed fixing, I thought, so I took it to the light store. As it turned out, the lamp worked—it was the light bulbs that were broken—but then it also turned out that the lamp could be rewired and fitted with a harp for a new shade while I waited. I sat down in a chair by the couple who own the store and talked about lamp shades and children and holidays and I pretended that they were my grandparents, whom I miss very much. Everything at this light store is wonderful: First of all that it is a light store, and the ceiling is thick with lights, the walls are covered in lights, floor lamps crowd the floor, and table lamps sit on any available surface; secondly, that the philosophy of the people who own the light store is total shamelessness regarding what can be a lamp, they will turn absolutely anything into a lamp, including an old tennis racquet with a ball stuck to it and a light bulb stuck on it next to the ball; thirdly that there is candy everywhere, in little dishes and desk drawers; fourthly that they fix your lamps quickly and inexpensively, while you wait; and finally that even things that are not really broken can be taken there and fixed.