There were moments when the longing felt like devotion; Kim guarded it like a relic, partly because it anchored her and partly because surrendering it felt like losing a part of herself. In the afternoons she would stand at the edge of things—doorways, bridge railings, the threshold of a play or a book—and listen for the echo of his voice in the city’s noise. Sometimes the echo came, fleeting and maddening, a coincidence that proved nothing and everything. Other times there was only a hush, and the hush itself taught her something about how deep sadness and hope could live in the same chest.