Now, three weeks later, she stood in the kitchen making tea, watching the first real snow of autumn paste itself against the window. The weather app on her phone pinged: First frost advisory. Change of season: fall to winter. Official date: November 7. She almost laughed. As if the seasons needed an official date. As if November 7th meant anything to the maple outside that had been dropping red leaves since late September.
Outside, the world had turned white. Not a line drawn between fall and winter—just snow on red leaves, one season still bleeding into the next, refusing to choose a date. And Marta, for the first time in weeks, poured herself another cup of tea and watched it happen without checking her phone for an official announcement. change of season dates
The truth was, there had been no single date for the end of them. No dramatic November 7th. It had been a slow rot, like October pretending to be summer one day and then biting cold the next. Small cruelties. Silences that stretched from hours into days. A Tuesday when he forgot to pick her up from work. A Thursday when she realized she hadn’t kissed him in a week. The final conversation happened on a Tuesday, but the relationship had ended sometime in August, during a heatwave, when they sat on the same couch without touching and watched a movie neither of them could name afterward. Now, three weeks later, she stood in the
The notebook was still on the shelf. She hadn’t opened it. Official date: November 7
She closed the notebook and put it back on the shelf, but this time she turned the spine outward. The calendar with the black X’s came down. She folded it once, twice, and dropped it into the recycling.
What I hope will grow: the courage to stop looking for the day it ended, and start looking for the day I begin again.
She paused. The snow kept falling.