REMI'S POV
Marisol and Emory left on Sunday.
The apartment was very quiet after.
Not uncomfortably quiet — the particular quality of a space that has been full and is now back to its right size. Isolde was in the carrier asleep and Dax was at his desk and I was at mine and the city was outside doing September things, which in September means the specific crispness of a season that has committed to the change and is not arguing about it anymore.
I was reading.
Not correspondence. A book — the actual book from the nightstand, the one that had been there since July and I had been getting through in twenty-minute increments while Isolde investigated the ceiling. I was thirty pages from the end.
Dax appeared in the doorway.
"Come here," he said.
I looked up. "I'm reading."
"You've been
