it is way too quiet in here now.

She is gone. The move is officially done. I walked past the 22-year-old’s empty room this morning and actually started crying. The apartment feels hollow. The boys are being unusually quiet too, probably because they don’t know how to handle me when I am weeping over empty closets. I had to pull myself together and go pull a shift at the coffee bar. Work was a blur of iced lattes and sweaty tourists complaining about the humidity. I just nodded and smiled and pretended my entire chest didn’t ache. I miss my daughter, I miss the noise, and if I am being brutally honest, I miss Jon. But I am not going to be the one to reach out first. I refuse.