A toddler in a puffy coat stomped through a pile of leaves. His mother laughed, breath fogging faintly.
Autumn, she decided, was this exact moment: the one where you stop waiting for a date on the calendar and start noticing the light turning gold at 4 p.m.
Maya hated that answer. She was from Chennai, where seasons arrived like trains on a schedule—sweltering heat, then monsoon, then mild. Here, the sky couldn’t make up its mind.
She texted Tom: It’s now.
Then she deleted it. She walked to the café on the corner, ordered a pumpkin spice latte she used to mock, and sat by the window as the 11:15 sun made a brief, glorious appearance.
He replied with a leaf emoji.