Volume I · The Reels
The furnace kicked on at 5:40, the way it always does. Bill made coffee; I read the listing draft the agent sent over and crossed out three adjectives. Strange to see the place described by someone who has never lived in it. Accurate, but flat — like the passport photo of a person you know.
Bill built a sheet: Keep, Sell, Give, Decide. We are mostly in the Decide column. The framed map of the rail line he used to maintain — keep. The bread machine we have used twice since 2014 — sell. The argument about the dining table is ongoing and probably ends in shipping it.
Tax returns back to 1998. The paperwork from when we became each other's legal anything. A folder labeled HOUSE in my handwriting from before we had email. We are scanning what matters and recycling the rest. It is slower than we thought and quieter than we expected.
Our neighbor came by with a six-pack and we sat on the steps for an hour, mostly not talking. We looked up the apartment in Villefranche on his phone, again. He said it looked small. It is small. That is part of why we picked it.
Coffee, mugs, a corkscrew, the good knife, a roll of tape. The flights are in April. Most of what we own is on a ship somewhere off Mexico. The house is louder empty than it ever was full — every footstep travels. We sleep on the floor for two more nights and then we go.