The evening run from my house, around the inner-city lake. It’s the kind of city where one shouldn’t run after dark. It’s been windy all month, and tonight the wind is pushing the water around the lake, the leaves are already flipped silver side up, the big flat clouds reddish black. I’m alone on my lap, but there’s a bicyclist heading in the other direction, then a man on rollerblades skating slowly backwards over this one perfect road.
I run home in the dark, up the concrete steps, have to shove the old wood-framed door open. The front steps rise beside the sunroom. The sunroom is beautiful: eight long windows set into the greystone; narrow wood floor. The lights are on and he’s on the couch, he’s reading something, he sees me coming.