The café sat at the corner of two streets that had forgotten each other. Maria came every Tuesday, not for the coffee — which was bitter and lukewarm — but for the silence. It was a particular kind of silence, the sort that doesn't ask anything of you.

Rain doesn't fall here. It arrives — slow and deliberate, like a guest who has been expected for weeks. James watched it coat the glass and thought about how the city looked like it was breathing.

There are mornings when the light comes in wrong. Not bad, just wrong — as if the sun miscalculated. On those mornings, everything in the apartment looked borrowed, temporary, like a stage set between acts.