One cool night in May, not long after, I found myself in the same bed where I had slept as a teenager, tossing, awake. I had to face down that other Maggie, and I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to confront her alone, so far away. At three in the morning, I rose and went to my parents’ study, quietly closing the door to cover the whistle of their dial-up modem. My fingers typed an online classified ad for my Hollywood courtyard bungalow, offering it as a cheap sublet until September. By morning, I had fifty applicants. At least ten seemed polite, reliable, and incredibly desperate. I drove by your bungalow and it’s so cute. It looks lonely, too. I’ll take great care of it. The more letters I read, the more the apartment slipped from me, and my return to Los Angeles as well. I’d had my shot at L.A. Maybe it was time to give someone else a chance. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for the city on my own; I had only ventured there because my ex had accompanied me. The next day, I sublet my bungalow to a couple who were uprooting from Boston and wanted a soft landing. He was a TV editor; she was a private-school history teacher. They had both gone to Ivy League schools, and one of their references was from a modestly famous writer, who adored them and teasingly chastised me for luring them away.

The couple knew that I intended to come back in the fall, but could they have the place until January 1? We know it’s asking a lot, but it would make things so much easier for us.

Let me think about it, I wrote back. And the next day, heart pounding, I said yes.

I told my parents and best friend, Yegina, about the sublet but not the extension. As long as I didn’t acknowledge it aloud, my bungalow was still mine, and I could return to it and to my job when my medical leave concluded at the end of September. At the same time, I left open the possibility that I would not fly west, and that the Rocque Museum would have to fire me. In truth, I dreaded either future: staying in Vermont with my parents, or rebuilding my life in Los Angeles. Instead, I liked to imagine the history teacher, perched on my yellow couch, delighting in the avocado tree on the patio. She might even start gardening a little, setting out terra-cotta pots of basil and cherry tomatoes, glorying in her first California sunshine.