The only thing she left was her hairbrush. It sat on Sam’s dresser between his collection of colognes and a jar of coins he’d collected from his travels abroad. He seemed to see it even when he wasn’t looking at it, even when he was in the living room watching videos of old matches of niche sports like Snooker and Curling.
           Two weeks after Kalie left, the whole world shut down. He thought about calling her then. He wanted to ask if she had enough toilet paper. He wanted to tell her that his mom offered to sew her a mask. He wanted to tell her to be safe.
           Three weeks after Kalie left, his sister texted to see how he was doing. The world is ending and the person I care about the most won’t talk to me—he wrote, then deleted it, said only: I’m fine.
           He was furloughed form his job at the restaurant, but it was okay because he was getting more from unemployment than he ever made in tips.
           For four weeks he purposely didn’t touch the hairbrush. When he ran out of weed, he called his guy and had him over. Sam knew the guy was lying when he said he hadn’t had contact with anyone, but he let him in, anyway. Smoked a bowl and did vodka shots and watched Tiger King. The weed guy had already streamed all the episodes, so he left early, and Sam passed out on the couch.
           Woke up in the middle of the night, still a little drunk and high. Went into the bedroom and took the hairbrush from the dresser. It smelled like Kalie’s shampoo. Peaches.
           There was a dark wad of hair still stuck between the bristles of the brush. Sam pulled it out and placed it in his upturned palm. Petted to his cheek.
           Once, when they were visiting her hometown in Indiana, he had gone with Kalie to one of those historic Victorian homes. Someone famous from the town had lived there, but Sam hadn’t heard of him before, and he doesn’t remember him now. What he remembers was a wreath hanging in one of the daughter’s rooms. It had an intricate floral design and was made, they were told by the old lady doing the tour, entirely from hair collected from the daughter’s head.
           You should do that, Sam said to Kalie, teasing. She had long brown hair. Sometimes Sam would put his hand on her back just to feel the silky strands against his palm.
           She laughed. Maybe I’ll make you one for our anniversary, she said. They had been together for ten months and had started to talk about it—what they would do to commemorate one year.
           Sam had never had a relationship last an entire year. Not then, and not now.
           He got a wine glass from the kitchen and put the matted ball of Kalie’s hair inside. Took the hairbrush and ran it through his own short black hair. He would keep brushing and collecting the hair until he had enough to make a wreath, or the world opened up again, or Kalie called to say she’d take him back, whichever came first.
Sounds like they are in the gold room at the Dodge House