My mother-in-law fed my dinner to the dog and called me a freeloader after a fourteen-hour workday. My husband told me to order takeout. I pulled up the deed to the condo I’d bought before we met, opened the front door, and told all three of them to pack their bags...

One year after the night Eleanor dropped the plate, I stood on the roof terrace of the newly completed waterfront terminal on Alaskan Way.

The building was six stories of cedar, structural steel, and floor-to-ceiling glass that caught the setting sun and threw it back across the bay in wide sheets of amber and rose. Below, several hundred people in evening clothes were gathered on the promenade for the opening reception, their glasses clinking, their laughter rising into the cool evening air like music.

Arthur Davies walked up beside me, holding two glasses of champagne. He handed one to me and leaned his elbows against the brushed-aluminum railing.

"Look at that cantilever, Sarah," he said, pointing toward the southern wing where the roofline seemed to float over the water without a visible column. "The city engineers told us it couldn't be done within the seismic code."

"They were looking at the old load tables, Arthur," I said, taking a sip of the wine. "If you anchor the tension rods into the foundation piling rather than the secondary slab, the load distributes itself across the entire footprint. You don't need the column. The strength is in the perimeter."

"The strength is in the perimeter," Arthur repeated, smiling into his glass. "I like that. We should put that on the firm’s holiday cards."

We stood together in silence for a few minutes, watching the Bainbridge Island ferry pull out from the terminal slip, its white hull cutting a clean, foamy wake through the dark water.

At eight o'clock, I left the party.

I didn't take an Uber. I walked the six blocks up the hill toward Western Avenue, my heels clicking rhythmically against the brick sidewalks, the salt breeze at my back.

I reached the building.

I tapped my keycard against the reader. The lock clicked open with that familiar, welcoming chime.

The elevator took me to the fifth floor.

I opened the door to the condo.

The apartment was filled with the soft, blue twilight of the Pacific Northwest spring. The hardwood floors were clean, bare, and glowing faintly in the streetlights below. On the drafting table in the corner, the plans for my next project—a municipal library in Port Townsend—lay weighted down with two smooth river stones I had collected from the beach.

Buster rose from his leather bed by the window, stretched his front legs with a low, happy groan, and walked over to press his head against my thigh.

I reached down, scratched him behind his ears, and unbuttoned my coat.

I hung it in the closet.

I took off my shoes.

I walked into the kitchen, turned on the small copper pendant light above the island, and looked at the clean, white quartz counter.

There were no dirty dishes.

There were no empty beer bottles.

There were no complaints.

I opened the small wooden breadbox, took out two thick slices of sourdough, toasted them until they were golden brown, and spread them with sweet butter and coarse sea salt.

I poured a cup of black tea, sat down in the leather armchair by the window, and looked out over the water.

The city was quiet.

The room was warm.