She tells him, then, a story that is both confession and sleight of hand. Once, when she was younger, she loved someone who loved another city. She left a token under a lamppost—nothing elaborate, an old key wrapped in a scrap of cloth. She walked away believing that tokens were enough, that gestures archived in public spaces could hold a heart in suspension. Years later she returned and the lamppost was gone, replaced by a bus stop that hummed advertisements. The token had been taken by a child or a thief or the wind; she never found out. The not-knowing lodged in her like a burr. It taught her to measure love as a ledger entry to be minimized.