When the heavy oak door to our two-flat slammed shut behind me that October evening, I knew it’d be some time before I returned to New York City. Our family — my wife, our 1-year-old son, one stressed-out tabby and I — had only moved to the North Side six weeks earlier. The trip back East was for saying goodbye to friends and colleagues.
But more than that, it was a farewell to the only city I could credibly say I knew.
