Assess

The warm rains passed and New York City is swept over in a breath of icy air. We go to Houston Street and buy a Christmas tree; it is too big when we get home. Same procedure as every year. We laugh. 

We were living in different countries entirely at the time, she says over coffee in their sunny walk-up in Brooklyn, but then the earthquake hit. And I realized he was the one thing I could not live without. 

I leave their home exhausted from the week and the life, but happy. Perhaps it isn't so difficult, after all. Perhaps when it is right the pieces fall into place on their own, and all you have to do is let them. You will not be afraid, like you thought you would. 

I rode the A all the way to West 4th street, walked the freezing but quiet corridor down Cornelia street to my stoop. Perhaps when it is right, you will know it.