Soon, his desk was marked by a cartography of clean spaces surrounded by dust. Every morning, on his way to work, he’d take some part of himself, neatly packed in a brown leather satchel. When I approached her, touched her shoulder, she turned to look at me. She stared out the window above the kitchen sink. My mother was alone, at the kitchen table. I woke up and could no longer smell him in the closed air of our home.
