Four Floors Up

Nell had moved eleven times in a decade and never once unpacked properly. Boxes by the door. A lease in a drawer. She arrived here expecting the same.

She woke before the light did. Then the sun came up over the water and filled the kitchen before it reached the floor — level, unhurried, the whole sea suddenly indoors. She made coffee and stood there far longer than she meant to.

By afternoon the doors were open and she’d asked people over. She hadn’t done that in years.

Walking back from the grass that evening, she found her own windows lit, four floors up.

The last box was open before she went to bed.