the painting now hangs in the little apartment Arthur and I share part of the year.
Below it, framed beside Robert’s letter, is a receipt from the first coffee Arthur bought me after I returned.
Twelve dollars exactly.
***
At my age, I thought selling my house meant I was walking away from the life I’d built.
I was wrong.
The painting now hangs in the little apartment.
I was finally walking into the part of it I’d kept postponing.
And somehow, halfway around the world, I found a piece of the man I loved and one I never expected to befriend.
For the first time in my life, “someday” wasn’t waiting for me anymore.
I was already there.
