We drove through the sprawling city, passed tall apartment buildings, offices, and restaurants. I gawked at the bushes and trees and planters overflowing with blossoms, some of which I recognized, such as petunias and pansies, and others I did not. How long had it been since I’d seen a flower blooming? Months. It made my heart sing.

“How about some dinner before we get you settled into your new place?” Soph asked. “There’s a great Mexican food joint in the neighborhood, unless you’d rather I make you a home-cooked meal—”

“No!” Miguel and I said together with matching tones of horror.

Sophie frowned. “What? I can cook.”

“Of course you can,” Miguel said. “But we’d miss you too much if you spent your evening in the kitchen.”

“Exactly,” I jumped in. “I mean I just got here.”

“All right then, Blanco Tacos and Tequila it is,” she announced.

I don’t think I was imagining the look of relief on her face. The truth is that Soph is not at one with the culinary arts even though she would like to be, and I imagined she wanted my first meal to be one that was actually edible.

Dinner was amazing. Shrimp fajitas to die for chased down by a margarita on the rocks with the salt on the rim just as the good lord intended. We reminisced a little, talked about their business, and autopsied the sad remains of my personal life. The consensus was that I needed to get back out there, but I was unconvinced.

It was early evening when we arrived at my new home. Judging by the size of the houses, we were in an exclusive neighborhood in the Biltmore area. This particular road was small and tucked away, camouflaged by enormous olive trees, which lined the quiet street. Miguel punched a code into the keypad in front of the massive wrought-iron gate, and with a lurch it slid open.

Instead of driving up the main driveway to the massive modern structure ahead of us, he took a narrow road that ran parallel to the main drive before veering off to the right. Tucked under a line of olive trees was a petite version of the big house. Small and square, it was a block of modern glass, steel, and concrete with wooden accents. I liked its austerity and the way the gray of the concrete blended with the silvery leaves of the olive trees that surrounded it.

When we climbed out of the car, there was a scuffle in the neatly trimmed oleanders beside us, and a pair of Gambel’s quail squawked and scurried deeper into the bushes as if fleeing certain death. They seemed comically overwrought, which made me laugh. I didn’t get this sort of wildlife in the center of Boston, so this was definitely a check in the plus column for Phoenix.