“Right,” she said. “So, tomorrow, let’s please go get married.”

She seemed almost frantic about it, and I have to admit that it made me worry. Was there something she wasn’t telling me? But then I looked at her, lying there, so uncomfortably pregnant with my babies.

“I can’t wait to marry you.” I kissed her passionately.

“Don’t get any ideas,” she snapped.

I tried to stifle my laugh as I rolled back over.

But as I lay there, I couldn’t sleep. I was back in Cape Carolina. With Amelia. With our soon-to-be children. I had sold the Palm Beach house I had shared with Greer. I had done it in baby steps. One day, I donated files of her work to libraries. The next, her friends came and sat on the floor of her huge closet, helping me choose what to donate and what was too precious to let go of. They each walked away with dozens of mementos of the friend they had loved until her last day.

Greer’s sister, much to my surprise, had flown down to help me pack boxes and instruct the movers. I didn’t know which pieces were family heirlooms. We donated a few things; some went back to various family members. But, yes, I still have a storage rental in Palm Beach filled with remnants of our life that I couldn’t say goodbye to. It was too hard, too permanent. I may never go back there, but it soothed me to know that I could.

Greer’s jewelry was the one thing I wasn’t sure what to do with. She was buried in her diamond wedding band, and her engagement ring was in the lockbox. I hoped that I would have a daughter to give it to one day or maybe a son who could pass it on to his wife. The emerald ring she had loved so much that belonged to her grandmother, I gave to her sister. It was right that she have it. Everything else I saved so that our future children could have a piece of their biological mother.

The most curious part of my unearthing process was an envelope inside the felt-lined drawer where Greer kept all her jewelry. On the front, it said, in Greer’s handwriting: Please give to Amelia Saxton. I was extremely confused. There was no note, no indication of why on earth my wife, who hadn’t dictated who a single other item should go to, would have wanted to give a piece of her jewelry to a woman she barely knew. I pulled out a bracelet. It was a thick but plain gold chain and from it hung a gold typewriter with ruby keys and pearl turning knobs. I took it with me, but I never gave it to Amelia. I wasn’t sure if she would want it or if it would be a setback.

The house sold, over asking price, in ninety minutes. I sat on the floor in the empty place for hours, looking out at the water. I thought about how Greer’s face lit up when we first toured it, how exhausted we had been after move-in day. I remembered carrying her over the threshold. And, yes, I remembered her dying in my arms. I felt numb but proud. Letting go of this house had felt impossible, but I had done it.