The leash was off the hook when I got home from work. Just the empty brass nail by the back door and the gate swinging open.
My daughter had taken the dog out without being asked. She's fourteen now. I stood in the kitchen listening to the nothing-sound of a house where nobody needs you for a minute.
There's a karaoke songbook on the coffee table from her birthday last weekend. One page is dog-eared — Landslide, which she sang with her eyes closed like she meant every word.
I didn't know she knew that song. I didn't know she knew half the things she knows.
I remember the day the training wheels came off her bike. She said don't let go and I said I won't, and then I did, and she rode all the way to the end of Mulberry Street without looking back.
Now she walks the dog at dusk and doesn't tell me where they're going. I stand at the window and watch until they round the corner and disappear.
I'm becoming someone who lets go on purpose. I didn't plan it. But the hook is empty and the house is quiet, and I think this is what it feels like to trust the letting go.