This place has no memory. There are no furnishings. There is no dirt. When the last tenant left, a service came with brooms and sponges and disinfectant. Someone shampooed the last human dust from the carpet. Someone else wiped clean the last trapped reflection in the bathroom mirror. On hands and knees, someone was assigned to scrub the kitchen floor until the last human footprint was erased. I have entered a vacuum. I have signed a one-year lease on nowhere. This will be my home, and when I am gone someone will come to erase me too.

The ceilings here are tall-nine feet. There is a fan in the living room. There is light. There will be more in the spring. My son and I share a bedroom, but I have put up a tent in the dining area he can call his own. From the divorce I have taken a foldout couch, a glider rocker, and every piece of furniture my father made or refinished except the trousseau. That I left for my wife. I bought a bed new, sanitary, also without memory. I have fitted it with skirting, sheets, a bedspread, and sham pillows. To the casual visitor, it would appear someone lives here. I live here. I just don't feel it yet.

I have hung art on the walls to punctuate their whiteness. I put down Druze rugs from Israel to hide the beige of the carpet. There are books and ivy, statuettes and souvenirs from my travel. A collection of Asian teapots sits atop a barrister bookcase. I burn patchouli and play Leonard Cohen. In time, these efforts will count. In time, this will be my space.

My parents were my first visitors. Becky and Will came next. We sat in a circle on the then-bare floor and ate pizza from boxes. We all watched Becky walk to her car and slowly pull out of the parking lot. I put on my bravest face and talked of amicable arrangements and the friendship we haven't lost. I talked until I fooled my parents, then myself. I kept talking until we all knew it was a lie. My mother cried when she hugged me goodbye. My father shook my hand and gave me money. They left. Will and I were alone, really alone, for the first time in our life.

That night, Will cried. His small body collapsed onto the carpet, and he wept until there was a visible stain underneath him. I rubbed his back and told him I loved him as he bawled out Go home now. Will be sad. Mommy get here. I don't like it New House. I cried with him, and soon my body was next to his on the carpet. Somehow, I don't know exactly when, we switched places. By the end of it, Will was rubbing my back and parroting my attempts at comfort. It be okay. Love my Daddy-O. Daddy Will's best friend. This was the moment those words became true.

Time has passed, and Will is happy here. Each visit, we move in a little more. His books lie next to my books. His favorite toys rest on shelves next to old photos and ivory sculptures of the Buddha. With less than eight hundred feet of living space, we've learned how to live our lives tightly woven. He is asleep now in the next room, and I am sitting under his favorite lamp, the one with the elephants. At night, we hear each others' snores and rustlings. In the mornings, we watch each other through the oak bars of his crib for several minutes before either of us is willing to admit to being awake. Tomorrow, I will make pancakes, then scoop out eyes and a smiling crescent mouth. We will both say I love you. We will declare our best friendship. Then Becky will come, and Will will have to leave. There will be hugs and tears and promises of future visits.

And this is life, or how it must be.