We registered.

We talked about what time we’d need to leave.

He even ordered a running belt online, insisting that if he was going to participate, he wanted to look prepared.

I teased him about taking the event more seriously than I was.

He laughed.

And I believed that maybe we were finding our way back to each other.

***

The evening before the race, I laid everything out in our bedroom.

My running shirt.

Daniel’s running shirt.

Our race bibs.

Socks.

Safety pins.

The little running belt he’d bought.

I checked the weather forecast and prepared our water bottles.

Daniel was downstairs looking at his phone.

Around eleven, I called out, “Don’t stay up too late. We have an early start.”

“I’ll be up in a minute,” he replied.

I went to bed smiling.

The following morning, I woke at 6:15.

Daniel wasn’t beside me.