One morning on my way home from work I pulled into Geannie’s driveway and parked behind Krystal’s car. It was shortly after dawn when I arrived, and it was a late winter day, the air hard and cold. The landscaping that Jim had taken great pains to maintain over the years had descended into wildness. Dead, scrubby bushes coiled around the front of the house, their thorny brambles shining in the frost.

At the time, I hadn’t been this close to the place since before the robbery. Walking onto the porch felt so strange, as if I was reaching my arm through a secret curtain and petting another timeline. It seemed incorrect, slightly mystical. I knocked and tried not to imagine anyone else besides my friend padding toward the door. After a few more knocks the blinds on the other side of the front door rustled, and then the door heaved open and Krystal stood before me.

“What do you want?” she said.

Her eyes were puffy slits, her hair crazed. She had been sleeping, apparently.

She was wearing one of Geannie’s old housecoats.

I looked at her. Looked at the housecoat. The ruffled collar. “I saw your car,” I told her. She stepped aside to let me in and shut the door. We stood in the small foyer, looking at each other for a long moment. The house felt big and silent around us. Not even a clock ticked. The air smelled the same as I remembered. I had fully stepped through the curtain.

Krystal put her hand on my shoulder. She told me it was okay. “What is okay?” I said. She didn’t answer.

I walked away from her and deeper into the house. I knew it better than I knew my own body. There was nothing showy about it, a large, two-story brick farmhouse with black shutters, but it seemed like the height of luxury to me. Geannie had always kept it nice. She had decorated the inside with heavy floral curtains and sturdy furniture, a giant, puffy couch, vases and artwork from the local antique mart. The wood floors had been refinished shortly before they left. The kitchen featured a sparkly granite countertop and white cupboards with small black knobs. Copper-bottom pots. Granny décor, Krystal had once said to me, joking, and I had gone silent, freezing her out for a week.

In the living room, the picture window looked out on a wide, sweeping field and the mountain beyond, and in the winter the mountain looked brown, and in the summer, blue. Our little heaven, Jim used to call the house.

Krystal trailed behind me as I walked upstairs. She called my name. I reached the bedrooms. The master was immaculate. Someone had made the bed with hospital corners, pulled the blinds shut. I didn’t linger long; it felt too private, like watching a man look at himself in a mirror. Krystal’s old bedroom contained my old Christmastime bed and nightstand, which my eyes skipped over. The room had also been used as their office and catchall place after she moved out, with a desk in one corner and an exercise machine stashed behind the door, odds and ends that never fit anywhere else.