At night, I had no trouble parking. I walked along Chicago Avenue toward Sheridan, and I shivered a little in my thin red shirt, because the lake breeze had cooled the air. The serene stone buildings of the university surrounded me. I crossed under the black arch that led into the heart of the campus and saw the clock tower of University Hall down the path in front of me. The closer I got, the harder it was to breathe. Just by seeing her, even for a moment, I felt as if I could get a little bit of my life back.

The doors of the white, rough-stone building were unlocked. Inside, I heard muffled voices. From somewhere nearby came the acrid smell of an illicit cigarette. The building stairs were ahead of me, and I climbed to the third floor. In the corridor, I passed a long lineup of offices, a few with doors cracked open. I could see a couple of faculty members tapping at their keyboards. Otherwise, the hallway was empty and museum quiet.

I found the room number listed on her online bio. The door was closed and locked. There was no window to see inside. But there was her name. Karly Chance. She’d posted no photograph on the door, but it was her. I saw a handwritten listing of her office hours pinned to a bulletin board, and the handwriting was unmistakably Karly’s. I’d found her. She came and went day by day down this same hall. She worked on the other side of this door. I thought about breaking in, just so I could smell the fragrance inside, because I knew it would smell like her.

“May I help you?”

I turned around and saw a slight Indian man studying me suspiciously from behind a pair of red glasses. He was one of the faculty members I’d seen working in his office.

My mind was getting accustomed to lying. “Oh, I was supposed to meet Karly here, but we must have gotten our signals crossed. I tried texting her, but my messages aren’t going through.”

“Are you a student?” the man asked, even though I obviously wasn’t.

“No, no, I’m her cousin. I’m in town from Seattle on business, and I was supposed to take her out for a late dinner. Do you know Karly?”

“Of course.”

I took a chance that the world had only changed so much.

“I’ve been looking forward to seeing her,” I went on, inventing a new story. “I don’t get out this way very often. Her dad is my favorite uncle. I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Tom’s a teacher, Karly’s a teacher. I used to really like Tom’s poetry, too. I loved listening to him read his poems when they’d come out to Washington for Christmas dinner.”