Late November; full dark

Upon returning to the city I live in, when my sister was gone,  having died from lung cancer, everything was black. It often still is, but I push back the darkness and try to move through things. I remember distinctly, in late November, getting into my head that I should go for a late-night walk, past a particular red-brick house that was nowhere near my neck of the woods. There was freezing rain earlier that day, and toward midnight, snowdrifts undulated down our street. In the end, glazed-eyed and out of my mind with grief at losing my sister after a grueling autumn, I did not venture out. What would I say if I walked to this house? What would I do? I would still need to walk back in the hellaciously conspiring weather, if I did stop at that front door. I was lost and decided to stay lost at home.

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