The first thing Leila unpacked was a colander. She had been looking for a spoon. Moving boxes rewarded urgency with objects that were technically useful and entirely wrong for the moment.
By eight, she had assembled the bed badly enough that she decided to put the mattress on the floor. The kettle was missing. Her phone had twelve percent battery. From the flat above came the sound of someone walking in shoes with an opinion about every floorboard.
She had chosen the move. This fact made her homesickness feel embarrassing. The new job was a good opportunity, the city had seemed exciting during the interview, and her friends had called her brave. None of them were in the room when she ate takeaway soup with a measuring spoon.
Her father called. She nearly let it ring, afraid that hearing his voice would make her cry. It did. He listened while she described the boxes, the bed, and the upstairs footsteps.
“You don't have to decide whether the whole move was right tonight,” he said. “Tonight you need a place to sleep.”
This was irritatingly practical and exactly enough. She plugged in the phone, found the bedding, and cleared a path to the bathroom. The flat became slightly less like evidence of a terrible mistake.
The following morning, a neighbor knocked to ask whether the removal van had left a roll of tape in the stairwell. Her name was Rose. Leila said probably, then admitted she couldn't find anything to sit on besides a suitcase. Rose offered a spare folding chair.
“Just until you get sorted.”
Leila accepted. She had spent so much energy proving she could do this alone that a borrowed chair felt almost like cheating. Yet sitting at the window with a cup of tea, once the kettle emerged, made the room feel possible.
The first week contained small defeats. She boarded the wrong bus. She forgot the entry code and had to call Rose. At work she asked a question everyone else seemed to understand, then asked another because pretending would have been worse. In the evenings, she walked the same three streets until they began to look familiar.
She found a church nearby but waited two Sundays before entering. Starting again in one part of life was tiring enough; becoming a newcomer everywhere felt excessive. When she finally went, nobody knew her history or her preferred pew. She could have found that lonely. That morning, she found it restful.
During a prayer for those beginning something new, she thought of the biblical journeys she had heard about as a child. They always sounded purposeful when told from the ending. Living inside a beginning felt more like reading a map with a low battery and wondering where to buy washing powder.
After a month, she returned the folding chair with a loaf from the bakery on the corner. Rose asked how she was settling in. Leila could truthfully say that she was, slowly. The flat still had boxes. The city still required attention. She missed home without believing the feeling invalidated the move.
That night she ate at her own small table. The spoon was in the drawer where she had put it. Above her, the familiar footsteps crossed the ceiling. She had started to recognize which creak came next.
