New York City welcomed spring with a damp breeze and swelling buds on the trees. The city where everything had once begun seemed alien now, like a forgotten set of an old play. Emily stood in the middle of boxes in her apartment, now her former apartment. In a week, a move to Chicago. A new home, a new last name, a new life.

A thin ring on her finger. Not what she'd once dreamed of, but simple enough not to drag on the past. Jeremy-her husband-was reliable, kind, balanced. He was calm, predictable. No explosions. She didn't know if she would ever love him as much or as truly as she loved Sebastian, but she knew that he loved her unconditionally and was as good for her as anyone else, and that was enough.

 Emily reached for the box and her fingers came across a familiar texture that trembled beneath her skin. A wooden frame. The edges cold, but strangely familiar.

She pulled the painting from the depths of the pantry. A gust of wind from the open window lifted a corner of the white protective canvas.

And then she saw it.

The same drawbridge under a full moon. On the left, a man with his hand outstretched, on the right, a woman in a light-colored coat. Their palms almost touch, but the millimeter between them still freezes on the canvas. "Bridge under the moon. Full moon." - so reads the plaque below, once affixed to the bottom edge of the frame.

Emily sat down on the floor, pressing the canvas to her chest as if it might respond with warmth in return. Her breathing became ragged.

- But..." she whispered, "you're gone.

And at that moment, she noticed that there was something written on the back side, under the edge of the stretcher. Handwriting. His handwriting.

It said, in his handwriting, in sprawling handwriting:

"NOW YOU KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE!"

She sat down on the floor, clutching the painting in her arms. And cried - for the first time in a long time, for real. Not from pain. Not out of regret.

Out of love.