Page 62 of Hunger

I hang up the receiver.

I sit at the kitchen table. The cord is still in my hand. The afternoon is getting on. The light through the kitchen window is fading toward gray.

I get up.

I go to my room.

I pack.

I don't pack much. The violin case. The sheet music. A canvas bag I haven't used since I dropped out of college, which I take down from the top shelf of the closet. Into it I put: two pairs of jeans, three sweaters, the wool coat I've been saving for the worst of February, a pair of warm socks, my toothbrush, the zippered pouch with my passport in it. I haven't used my passport since I was eighteen, when my mother took me to Seoul to see her sister. I'm surprised it's still where I left it.

I put the river stone in the pouch with the passport. The first gift he ever gave me. The thing that's sat on my nightstand for two and a half weeks.

I look around the room.

I leave almost everything. The textbooks on the desk — I leave them. The clothes in the closet — I leave them. The makeup and the hair products and the accumulated things of two years of my life in this room — I leave them. I don't need them. I'm going to a new life. The old life can stay here.

I write two notes.

I write one for Lisa.

Lisa — I'm leaving. I've decided to go follow my music. I won't be back. I'm sorry to leave you with the rent. There's two hundred dollars in the desk drawer for you and Dee. I've left my furniture and my kitchen things. Please give the violin teacher recital photo on my desk to my mother if you can find a way. Thank you for the chamomile tea. — Jenny.

I write one for Dee.

Dee — I'm leaving and I won't be back. I'm sorry for the trouble. There's money in the drawer for the rent. Please take care of Lisa. Thank you for the stew. — Jenny.

I leave the notes on the kitchen counter beside the coffee maker where both of them will see them when they come in.

I shower one more time and dress in warm clothes — the wool coat, the boots, a scarf. I look at myself in the bathroom mirror. The dark circles are gone. My skin isn't sallow anymore. I don't know if it's the last week of sleep or the last day with him or both, but I look like a person who's been brought back from something.

I'm ready.

I pick up the violin case and the canvas bag.

I look at the apartment one more time.

The kitchen with Lisa's mug in the sink. The note on the counter. The phone on the wall.

I let myself out.

I lock the door behind me. I leave the key on the ledge above the doorframe where Lisa always leaves the spare in case Dee forgets hers.

I go down the stairs.

The stairs are cold. The hallway is cold. The front door of the building sticks in the cold and I have to yank it twice before it gives, the way it's stuck every winter since I moved in.

I step outside.

The afternoon is gone. The sky is the deep gray of just before dusk. The wind has picked up. The first lights in the windows of the building across the street are coming on.

I cross the parking lot.

I cross the street.

I see him.

He's across the road in the shadow of the bare elm, the way he was on the first night. He's standing perfectly still. He's wearing the long dark coat. The cold pale of his face is the only thing visible in the deeper dark beneath the branches.