The Photograph Looked Ordinary

The photograph looked ordinary, and that frightened me. Aisha, the receipt, the stamp, the ledger page—all of it fitted into one bedside frame, as if a life could be made provable by arranging it correctly. I kept checking the image after I’d already checked the stamp, then checked the stamp again because I wanted one more reason to trust myself.

My truck stopped in rising water, and for a few minutes I could not tell whether I was afraid of the flood or of what the lawyer’s message meant. Marika’s house is not an abstract sale. Clearing it means opening rooms, touching what she left behind, deciding what counts as hers and what should simply be carried out. I am good at entering places other people cannot enter. I am less good at admitting when I want to enter them so I don’t have to face my own.

I did not answer her. That was cowardice, but it was also the first honest boundary I managed tonight.

Yesterday I wanted the jacket and the warnings to be enough. Tonight I wanted the camera beside me to be enough too—proof that I had done what I said, that I could bring something back, that I was not merely moving through other people’s last instructions while my own life remains untouched. I do not know whether Marika will wait for me. I know I left her message unanswered because part of me is relieved I still have an excuse not to decide.

The cold supper tasted like nothing. I kept my boots within reach anyway. In the morning, the water may be higher. So may the consequences.