Page 134

It's Saturday. Game six is at seven, in Nashville. The team flew out yesterday morning without me.

Everything in the apartment is his.

I didn't notice before. I thought it was just a rug, and a fern, and some lights. But from the couch, with my leg up on the coffee table in its long black brace, I can see it all. The rug with the orange triangles. The cat-shaped pot. The Christmas lights, still up in the window in June. The green blanket over the back of the couch. The orange cushion he brought from his place and never took back. A hoodie of his hanging on the hook by the door, the one with the moose on it. The KISS THE COOK apron.

Josée's note is on the refrigerator, under a magnet shaped like a hockey puck. I put it there the first night home. I read it every time I crutch past, on my way to the coffee maker.

The offer does not expire.

The buzzer goes off at ten.

It's Laurel.

She's standing in the hallway with a big paper bag from the Greek place on Halsted that she always liked. She's wearing a blue coat I've never seen. Her hair's shorter. She looks good. She looks like somebody who's been sleeping at night.

"Hi," she says.

"Hi."

"I brought soup. Avgolemono." She holds up the bag. "You always got it when you were sick. I figured a destroyed knee counts."

I don't know what to say. I stand there on my crutches in the doorway.

"Can I come in?" she asks. "Or should I leave it on the mat like a delivery guy?"

I step back. She comes in.

She stops in the middle of the living room. She turns in a slow circle, the way he did, the first night he came here. She looks at the rug. At the fern. At the lights. At the moose hoodie on the hook.

"Oh," she says softly. "He did this."

"Most of it."

"The rug?"

"He said gray doesn't count as a color."

She laughs. It's a real laugh, surprised. "He's right. I told you that for twelve years. I bought you that red couch in 2016 and you made me return it."

"It was very red."

"It was cheerful, Owen." She puts the bag on the kitchen counter. She looks at the refrigerator, at the note under the puck magnet. She reads it. She doesn't say anything about it.

"Sit," she says. "Before you fall over. I'll get bowls."

She opens the wrong cabinet first. Then the second wrong cabinet. The third one has the plates in it, my one plate and a stack of mismatched bowls he brought over in a box from his place, all different colors.

"Where did these come from?" she asks, holding up a yellow one with a chip in the rim.

"His mom's garage sale. She mailed them."

"His mother mailed you bowls?"

"In December. With a note that said a man should have more than one plate."

Laurel stands there in my kitchen holding the yellow bowl, and she starts laughing, and she keeps laughing, leaning against the counter with one hand over her eyes.

"What?" I say.