The Cool-Down

Damon was charged with child endangerment and two counts of assault before the month was out, and he never moved back into the apartment, not even to collect the duffel bags he'd arrived with, which sat in a hallway closet for weeks until Agnes finally drove them to a donation bin herself.

My mom went to therapy twice a week that spring, which I only knew because she told me, plainly, at dinner one night, that she was going and why, in the same voice she used for things that mattered.

Agnes got her key back the same week, no longer a spare, just a key, and started coming over on Sundays again with a chicken and no warning needed, because my mom had asked her to.

The balcony door still sticks a little in cold weather, the same as it always did, but nobody uses it for anything but sitting out there in the summer now, and last month my mom took the little chart down off the fridge and put up a calendar instead, an ordinary one, with nothing on it but birthdays and dentist appointments.

Pearl still flinches sometimes at a door latch, less than she used to, and when she does, my mom or I get down on the floor next to her until it passes, which Dr. Ferrante told us, at a follow-up, was exactly the right thing to keep doing for as long as it takes.

Some nights I still catch myself standing near the glass out of habit, palm half-raised, before I remember there's nobody on the other side of it anymore who needs me to be there.

It's just a door now. It took the whole family a long time to believe that, but it's just a door.