A's

ed a hole in m

f expecting it to vanish like the other miracles that never came.

ramming for art history f

d out when the hospital

that mob-owned Italian place in Red Hook, coming home wit

now

thing we'd ever owned. More than all the birt

dMe we posted that ba

en the apar

too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter. But it was ours. The creaking floorboards, the faded posters on my wall, the fridge that b

side where the pain lived now. She didn't turn when I walked in, just said, "You're

said, and my own voice sou

heck across

aid not t

the deal. Clean line

I couldn't just vanish for nine months with some fli

eventually, but worry wo

fingers picked

aught - just slightl

bag by the door, half-zipped and already threaten

ice boiling over, hissin

ally asked, voice dry as

laugh. "Worse.

wly, like she wasn't su

chool in Switzerland that would never let someone like me t

ed off t

etched between

check with a fingernail, eye

you were sleeping - they've got you scheduled for the new treatment ne

you. Keep

When she looked up, her eyes were g

ou promise

hs. Just n

e both knew nothing woul

heek, brushing back a strand of hair like she used to

't let yo

eavier than the city skyline pressing against our wind

d slowly, like a prisoner

lling with portraits of sleeping subway riders got tucked under my mat

ns (the black on

stolen from a lost-and-found

r my sixteenth birthday (still em

ominic's lawyer had handed me. For emergenc

ontinents, the half-torn concert poster, the windowsill full of tick

ame to

ing me leave. The morning light caught the lines around her mouth, the new

ke it was any other day. Lik

y Sun

t wouldn't have a mother d

d a crumpled twenty into my palm. "For the train," sh

ed at the curb,

le world - the rusted fire escape where I'd smoked my first cigarette, the bodega on the corner that alwa

as who

k on Aria Cole and s