Roula 1995 -

I have the key. But the door has been gone for decades.

"Do you believe in ghosts?" she asked.

"You walk like you are lost."

"Nothing," she said. "A key to no door. Keep it. It will remind you that some locks are better left unfound."

She told me about the year her father stopped laughing. About the knock on the door at 4 a.m. when she was twelve. About the way a room changes when men in suits ask for documents that don't exist. She told me these things without tears, as if reciting a recipe. Then she would stop, light another cigarette, and say, "But that is not why you came here." Roula 1995

"Yes."

The photograph is warped at the edges, a casualty of humidity and haste. It shows a girl with dark eyes and a white dress, standing on a balcony in Athens. Behind her, the Acropolis is a blur of gold and dust. The date is scratched on the back in faded ink: July 1995 . Her name was Roula. I have the key

I wanted to say something beautiful, something that would pin her to this moment, to this rooftop, to me. Instead, I said, "That's far."

"Where?"

She poured the wine. It tasted of pine and regret. We watched a cat pick its way across a隔壁 roof. Then she said, "I am leaving."