Once and Again

I go home. Not to Malibu, no, to West Hollywood, to the place adult me lives. Our renter left early—the second season of her show was picked up and she bought a house—but still paid through the summer. The bungalow is ours again. All we have to do is collect Pea.

When I get there the driveway is scattered with leaves—debris from two months with no gardening. I take the stone path back and unlock the door.

The house is cold inside, and dark. I flip on some switches and set the heat to seventy-five. Leo and I don’t fight a lot, almost never, but the one thing that we can’t agree on is how warm it should be in here. Leo, even though he’s always sweating, likes it balmy. For once, I agree with him.

I flip the kettle on and settle into the couch. A small cloud of dust poofs out from the couch when I sit—was anyone here? Did anyone live here this summer? Or was the renter a mirage, an idea that belongs to what seems now to be a shadow life, a shadow summer?