It was one of those mild evenings that made the whole apartment feel a little too honest. The sink was full of dishes and the curtains moved like they had opinions.

I had meant to wash the dishes before the light changed, but there is a kind of evening that turns a kitchen into a small stage and makes every task seem theatrical. The window over the sink stayed open, though the air had gone cool, and the curtains moved in and out as if they were trying to remember a dance. I stood there with a dish towel over one shoulder and watched the street lamps blink awake, one by one, as if the city had finally decided to begin.

At the bottom of the street, a man in a green coat was tying up a bicycle with the grave patience of someone carrying a secret. He looked upward once, and for a moment I thought he might see me, though of course he could not. I was only a figure in a rectangle of light, faint and unimportant, and yet the room felt suddenly inhabited by something more than my own reflection. When I finally closed the window, the whole apartment seemed to breathe out, as if we had all been holding our breath together.