My finger traced your apology in the dusty residue of your absence. Motes and fragments of your habits cling to the apartment and the furniture. A scuff from your impossibly narrow dress boots on the kitchen tile. The dried chalk of your mail-order, not tested on animals toothpaste clings to the bathroom faucet. A drink ring on the coffee table, from your family recipe Manhattan, where the vermouth bottle sits just adjacent to the Canadian blended for 60 seconds, not more, with 2 cubes, gently cracked. The ring is just dried condensation on the finish, not even a stain. Easy to wipe up. All temporary, like you.

We became a certainty, an inevitability, as fast as we chose the restaurant for our first date. Chinese or Italian? My place or yours? Marriage or sinful cohabitation? I cleared that drawer for your underwear. Shall we kiss? I had lunch with your mom. Shall we dance? Whose cologne is that? In our bed? Where were you last night? Your drawer is empty. Chinese or Italian? Delivery for one.

I know you are sorry how it all happened. How you didn’t mean to get distracted. How he was only there to spice things up. How maybe we moved too fast, in the first place. I know all of this. And I know that when I clean the house, tomorrow, you’ll be gone, completely, without a trace. But tonight, at least, my coffee table wears your ring, right next to my crab Rangoon and my extra duck sauce, and my Manhattan.