A year is an exact cycle in nature. On a Saturday in July—exactly twelve months after that train journey—Jean returned to the Montparnasse Cemetery. The Parisian summer bathed everything in golden light, and the air was filled with the song of sparrows.
Jean walked with a steady step along the gravel paths. In his hand, he carried a small bunch of wild lavender, which he had grown himself in the cracks of his own courtyard. Upon reaching the gray stone headstone where his mother’s remains rested, he stopped. He felt none of the tightness in his chest that he had experienced a year earlier.
He sat on the stone border of the adjacent grave and placed the lavender upon the marble. For months, he had mentally rehearsed a speech for this moment—a way to voice his healing—but standing before the stone, he realized that words would be nothing more than unnecessary noise.
“I’ve tidied up the courtyard, Mama,” was all he said.
His voice sounded calm, carried gently away by the breeze. He ran his fingers over the carved letters of her name. In the past, he would have come seeking refuge; today, he was simply paying a visit.
A sparrow flew down from the branches and landed on the corner of the headstone. Jean watched it in silence. The bird was not celebrating death; it was celebrating the fact that the sun had come out.
Jean smiled. He stood up, brushed off his trousers, and stroked the edge of the stone one last time—not like someone clinging to an anchor, but like someone saying goodbye from the safety of a pier.
He walked through the cemetery paths toward the exit. As he stepped back out into the streets of Paris, the bustle of traffic and the lively café terraces enveloped him completely. Jean did not quicken his pace. He breathed in the thick afternoon air, walking to the rhythm of his own heartbeat. The apartment was no longer a terrifyingly empty canvas. It was his home, and it was waiting for him.