The desk asserted its need to be bought—it wanted her office—it wanted to be put in the corner, half under the window looking over the neighbors’ roof. Green, it said. And cherry, it said. One the trees, one the wood. She was pleased. This was the new start. When she walked out of the airport, having dispatched her daughter to a college far from her home, she would sit at this desk and whip up ‘things.’ There would be horses, transitive verbs, ocean bottoms and rebellions of many types. There would be the window and the world. This may sound sad but it is not.