Her apartment is empty, ready to rent, ready to leave, and only trash cans – no, a trash can, though maybe two – and a plastic-wrapped mattress and boxspring remain (will get the latter out this weekend).

And glitter on the floor; there might be a roll of toilet paper left too.

Left the washer and dryer, compliments of the estate of.

It looks the same on the inside in the same way that everything looks the same in the little matchbox apartment development: as my grandfather said when we first moved her there, I'd hate to be drunk coming into this place; I'd never find where I lived.

(To this day, two years after she moved there and almost a month after she died and after a month of me going there almost every day I still can't remember where the apartment is until I'm almost past it.)

My relief remains unchanged, my only sadness being that she made it impossible for me to miss her; I want to miss her, I wish I did, but I don't: seeing all the trinkets and couches I slept on and upon which developed PTSD because I didn't sleep for a month, listening and waiting for her while she was sick years ago and the beds I had to re-assemble more times for reasons a kid never should have to and the Christmas decor tubs that I'll never have to lift again and the memories of the Christmases near the end of the ill-fated and ill-suited partnership that produced me that made me hate Christmas and seeing all that go into the back of the white van for the tax-deductible donation being nothing short of catharsis incarnate.

I remain fascinated that the most difficult things to dispose of are trash cans and mattresses and bad memories.