The seat swap was her idea. She wanted my car, the one with the heated seats. I took her old sedan with the sticky passenger door.
That swap started everything. The separation, the paperwork, the silence where conversations used to be.
Now I drive her car to my parking enforcement route. The takeout menu from Lucky Dragon sits in the glovebox, annotated in my margins — 'too salty,' 'good if you ask for extra sauce.' Small marks of a life rebuilt.
The night the power came back on after the ice storm, I was sitting in the dark. A single bulb in the kitchen flickered and held. I realized I hadn't been waiting for the lights. I'd been waiting for some signal that I was still here.
I'm still in the passenger seat of my own life sometimes. But I'm learning to drive again, slowly, one ticket at a time.