The week after Mrs. Patterson's funeral was the coldest of the year.
Maya woke each morning to frost on her window. The radiator hissed but the heat didn't reach the corners of the room. She stayed in bed longer than she should have, staring at the ceiling crack.
The river. She followed it until the light changed.
Leo brought her coffee every morning. He knocked softly, then let himself in with the key she'd given him. He didn't talk much. He just set the cup on her desk and sat on the floor.
"You need to eat," he said on the third day.
"I'm not hungry."
"You need to eat anyway."
She sat up. The room spun for a second. She hadn't eaten properly in days.
Leo handed her a bagel from the bodega. It was stale. She ate it anyway.
"We need to clean out Mrs. Patterson's apartment," he said.
"I know."
"When?"
"Today."
He nodded. "I'll help."
---
The apartment was cold.
The heat had been turned off after Mrs. Patterson left for the facility. Maya stood in the doorway, looking at the kitchen table, the folding chairs, the rosary on the wall.
The game show wasn't on. The television was dark.
Leo came in behind her. "Where do you want to start?"
"The bedroom."
Mrs. Patterson's bedroom was small. A bed. A nightstand. A dresser. A closet full of clothes that smelled like lavender.
Maya opened the closet. Dresses. Blouses. Sweaters. Shoes in a row on the floor.
"She didn't have much," Maya said.
"She didn't need much."
They worked in silence. Maya folded the clothes into garbage bags. Leo cleared the nightstand – a Bible, a pair of glasses, a tube of hand cream.
In the bottom drawer of the dresser, Maya found a box. Wooden. Small. A latch on the front.
She opened it.
Photographs. Old ones. Black and white. A young woman in a wedding dress – Mrs. Patterson. A man in a military uniform – Henry. A house with a porch – somewhere upstate.
Maya held the photographs one by one.
"She had a life before this building," she said.
"Everyone does."
"I never asked her about it."
"You're asking now."
Maya put the photographs back in the box. She closed the latch.
"I'm going to keep these," she said.
Leo nodded.
---
They cleared the apartment in four hours.
The kitchen. The bathroom. The living room. The bedroom. Bags of clothes. Boxes of dishes. The rosary – Maya took that too.
The only thing left was the kitchen table and the folding chairs.
"The tenant association needs a place to meet," Leo said.
"We can meet in my apartment."
"Your apartment is too small."
"Then we meet here. Mrs. Patterson would have wanted that."
Leo looked at the table. The tenant list was still there. Twelve names. Mrs. Patterson's name at the top.
"Are you going to keep the list?" he asked.
"It's not a list anymore. It's a memorial."
He didn't argue.
---
That night, Maya went to the roof.
The garden was gone. The buckets were stacked. The stakes were tied. The easel was covered.
She sat on the milk crate. The cold seeped through her jeans.
Leo came up. He sat next to her.
"I've been thinking about the developer," he said.
"Now?"
"There's never a good time. But we have a meeting with them tomorrow."
"I forgot."
"You've had other things on your mind."
Maya looked at the water tank. The painted eye stared back. Someone had touched it up again – the blue was brighter.
"Do you think Mrs. Patterson can see us?" she asked.
"I don't know."
"What do you believe?"
Leo was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "I believe that people don't disappear. They change form. Energy. Memory." He paused. "She's in the walls. In the floors. In the garden. In you."
Maya leaned her head on his shoulder. "That's not scientific."
"Since when do you care about science?"
She almost smiled. "I don't."
They sat in silence. The city hummed. The water tank hummed.