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immediately panicked to see if I could envision where his pants and ties once hung. If I could remember, at least part of him remained with me. It was like trying to catch steam.
    It wasn’t just inside our home, either. It was the aroma of the pizza place on the corner where we ate on Sunday evenings. It was knowing where the Speed Stick was shelved at Vons, but not needing to buy it. It was the sympathetic look on my dry cleaner’s face when I picked up my lighter load. It was the nothings that were everything.
    At first I clung to the pain like a placeholder, as if letting it go would mean that we could never reverse time. As months passed, reality usurped hope, and I realized there were no placeholders; there was only empty space where Steve used to be. My mother told me that this feeling would pass with time, but it didn’t. Though she meant well, my mother took me on a bereavement shopping trip four months after Steve died. She isn’t shallow. Rather, she honestly gets great comfort from the act of shopping and purchasing new clothing, shoes and hats. I gave it a try because it was easier than turning her down again, but I felt no better after our day at Neiman Marcus.
    Since my mother’s suggestions of time and retail didn’t work, I decided to try distance instead, and listed the apartment with a realtor, whom I also asked to find us a nice suburban family home at least an hour from downtown. Through a small ad on Craigslist, all of our furniture was absorbed by strangers looking to cozy their homes with a tapestry Steve and I bought in Bali, the hand-carved headboard his parents gave us as a wedding gift and the funky chair we picked up at an art fair in Napa Valley. In eight weeks, escrow on both places had closed and Rachel was enrolled for the upcoming fifth grade session at Santa Bella Elementary School.
    Looking around Darcy’s house that day in November reminded me that it was time I decorated and made my house feel like a home for Rachel and me. If the whole point of our move was to give Rachel a greater sense of stability, I needed to unpack our boxes. Rachel was better about this. She had posters on her walls and stuffed animals perched on her dresser before the sun went down on our first night at the new house. From the time she was five, I sensed she was a stronger person than I, asserting her will as I struggled to make decisions. I missed discussing with Steve my concerns about raising a daughter who seemed to ground me more than I did her. He always assured me that our family dynamic worked and that the three of us complemented each other to create a perfect balance. Back then, I feared he was wrong. Now, I feared he was right.
    As she dipped her teaspoon into her mug, Darcy assured me that, as scandalous as the adults in club soccer could be, the positives outweighed the negatives. “Trust me,” Darcy said, calmer than she’d been during the entire half-hour of my visit. “I would not put my daughter into a world that was bad for her. There are drawbacks, to be sure, Claire, but Rachel will have a great time, she’ll make new friends and learn a lot,” she said. “The kids really blossom.”
    Moving to Santa Bella created a fresh setting in which Rachel and I could make a new life together. My mother and my sister Kathy characterized it as running away, and I suppose they had a point. But more than that, I was running toward something new. I just never imagined that our run would require cleats and shin guards.

Chapter Five
    Days after Rachel’s recreational soccer season ended, the holidays descended, and in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, there were three strikes that sent me packing. At Thanksgiving dinner at Kathy and brother-in-law George’s house, Mother surprised everyone with the news that she had eloped with her longtime “companion,” Blake, who was also her business partner at Garb magazine, Mother’s color glossy for senior fashionistas. (They rejected my