I stubbed my toe on a half-pulled nail. When I wiggled it out, a long nylon thread of avocado shag carpeting came with it, and I recalled the avocado carpet of my own childhood; pressing my face into it as the air conditioner wheezed out cold, wet puffs of barely filtered swamp air; the pernicious creep of fear that always came when the front door swung open, the screen door slammed shut, keys jangling unsteadily; and then I blinked, and the bungalow came back as it was. Peeling linoleum, walls half papered in a marble swirl, a broken ceiling fan, dirty windows, broken screens, carpet long ripped away. I was not in Florida. This was not my childhood home. It was a new place—to me, at least.

I strolled onto the beach, where thick, pebbled sand dried out against the retreating waves, to watch the ruby sunset melt below the tree line. Tyler’s black house was six houses down—number seven—and yet it wasn’t a single black, not exactly. Rather, it was five shades of black. Lamp black on the roof; Mars black on the windows; a viridian-tinted-black on the door and porch trims; the siding almost navy, probably a blackened Prussian blue; the shutters in Payne’s gray, a hard, matte black like charcoal. The screen door was locked. I tried the windows, and though they were bolted tight, I could see inside to where the walls and floor were black. The furniture was black. The lamps were black. The art on the walls was black.

In the photo shoot that was published after Carey’s obituary, “Perpetual Persephone,” the one where she wore a white dress dipped in flowers and smeared broken plums across Tyler’s skin, they’d been in a house that was all white: the doors, the floors, the furniture, the lamps, the plates, the art that hung on the wall. The single black was a number painted on the side: 7.

This house.

This house—Tyler’s house—their house—now painted black—every shade of grief. I shuddered and turned to watch the sun go down across the water.

The only black missing from Tyler’s house was the glossy black of the lake.

*  *  *

Another hour passed as I carefully covered up the holes in all the screens, set buckets under the darkest spots in the ceiling, and chased down mosquitoes with a sneaker, all beneath the buzzing glare of the single electric bulb in the living room.

I tried switching it off—it was ugly and unpleasant—but under the slide-change of darkness, I was unsettled by every noise, every moving leaf. Immediately I wondered if there was a prison nearby. I imagined men with biceps the size of bread loaves in orange polyester jumpsuits holding a knife to my throat, leering into me, expelling their rancid breath into my mouth. Like the subway but with fewer bystanders.

I flipped the light back on.