I stand in the middle of the apartment, taking in the layout the same way I take in every room I enter.
But I also look because I want to. This is the first place of hers I’ve been in. The absence of anything performative is its own statement.
No clutter. No staged minimalism. Things chosen and kept because they work and because they are loved. She’s not trying to impress with the space. It’s just where she lives.
She doesn’t tour me. She goes quiet as soon as the door closes and moves through the rooms on autopilot. Her coat goes to a hook. She crosses to the kitchen and pulls out a case from acupboard: a black zippered leather case the length of her arm. I know before she unzips it what’s inside.
Knives. The real set. The ones she didn’t bring because she didn’t know she was staying. The ones a cook’s hand reaches for before her brain registers it.
She stands at the counter, opens the case, and lays the roll out like a ritual. I stand in the doorway and say nothing. This moment is not for me.
Steel. Not shiny. Cared for. The chef’s knife is the most easily recognizable one in the lineup. Then there’s a bread knife, tweezers, a spoon, plus a few other knives I don’t know the names of.
She runs a thumb along the spine of the chef’s knife like she’s greeting an old friend and then wipes the blade on a cloth in the case. She doesn’t check the edge; she doesn’t have to. She knows.
She opens her bag and pulls out a canvas roll that still looks stiff. One by one, she migrates the tools that make her who she is from the life she’s been living to the life she’s walking into. The gesture is small.
But it means everything.
“You don’t have to go through everything,” I say when I trust my voice. “I can have a crew pack it and ship it. Books, clothes, whatever. Furniture too, if you want it.”
She pauses with her hand on the steel. Doesn’t look up right away. When she does, the look isn’t defense; it’s evaluation.
“The furniture can go,” she says. “Most of it. The bed was cheap. The table I like.” She glances at the mat board and mattarello. “Those come. Cookbooks can be boxed. Clothes too.”
A breath. “But my knives come with me. And a few other things.”
“Done.”
I take out my phone and send a short message to a man. He replies with a thumb before I even put the phone away. He knows the drill and will make sure everything arrives in the same condition.
She slides the last blade into a pocket, flips the roll, ties it off. She crosses to the bookshelf and pulls down five titles without hesitating: a regional Italian pastry book with grease on the corners; an M.F.K. Fisher collection; Samin’s salt-fat-acid book in Italian; an old paperback that looks like it’s seen a beach bag more than once; a notebook thicker than the rest with elastic around it, gone white with overuse. She adds a slim folder and tucks it all into a tote.
From the bedroom: three shirts, a sweater, a dress, a pair of jeans, two pairs of trousers, socks, underwear, a scarf with a bright, splashy pattern. She folds fast and packs them into a carry-on she pulls out from under her bed.
She opens a drawer in the small desk and pulls out a stack of blue painter’s tape labels and a Sharpie. She starts walking through the apartment and labeling various items.
At the little table, she picks up two lemons and moves them to the kitchen counter. “For the housekeeper,” she says, nodding at the lemons. “She’ll come after the movers.”
I nod. Of course, she thinks like that. Of course, she leaves a room better than she found it, even when she isn’t coming back.
Out of her bag, she pulls out a ring with a few keys on it; she removes one.
“For the landlord,” she says. “They will let the movers in.”
She walks to the balcony and steps out. The street noise rises up to meet her. She puts both hands on the rail and looks left, then right, then straight up at the slice of sky. I can’t see her face from where I stand; I can see the set of her shoulders.
I give her the time without rushing her. She stays until a church two streets over begins to ring the hour. She looks down at the herbs, pulls a single sprig of thyme, rubs it between her fingers, and brings it to her mouth to taste.
It’s a cook’s reflex I’ve seen a hundred times on a hundred faces. It’s new on hers, to me, in this light.
When she comes back in, she doesn’t try to be brave about it. She takes one last glance around the room, the way people look at aperson they love before they turn away fast, because if you think about it too much, you’ll never leave.
“Okay,” she says, not to me, to the apartment. “Basta.” Enough.
She rolls the carry-on to the kitchen, where she picks up the knife roll, and comes to stand by the door. No speech. No drama. Just a quiet head tilt like: ready when you are.
I take the carry-on from her and let her set the pace.
