I have a dream that Yara is locked in a closet and calling my name. When I wake up I’m covered in sweat and my heart is pounding. I glance at my phone. It’s five o’clock in the morning. I do the numbers in my head as I swing my legs over the side of the bed. Two years this month, that’s how long it’s been since she left. I take a shower, make myself a pot of coffee, but I can’t shake the dream. I could see her so clearly, her long hair braided down her back, her red-rimmed eyes. I make a point not to look at old photos because every time I do it feels like I’m back at day one—the first day after she left me—but I can’t stop the dreams. They bring her face back to me in detail. My friends tell me that I need closure. Before the residue of the dream has worn off, I book a one-way ticket to London. It’s now or never, I tell myself. I pack a small bag and leave without telling anyone.

“Business or pleasure?” the woman in the seat next to me asks.

She fastens her seat belt and then looks over at me expectantly. I have no plan to spend the flight talking to a stranger.

“Business,” I say.

“What sort of business?”

“I’m going to find my wife.” And then I lean my head against the window, the pillow propped against the glass, and fall asleep.

I stay in a hotel she once told me about, on the Strand. She bartended there for a few months before she decided to adventure in America. What are the big differences between London and Seattle? The weather is the same. As I put one foot in front of the other and steer my body through the streets, I am rained on the same way I am rained on back home. I don’t walk with my head down like everyone else because I am looking in their faces, the people who carry umbrellas (we don’t really do that in Seattle, carry umbrellas). I am searching for Yara, who no longer works in the same place Ed Berry reported. Rainwater drips down my face, into my mouth because I won’t bend my head against the rain.

I am looking for Yara. I am looking for Yara…

I think about calling Ed, but I’m already here. I can find her. That’s what I say to myself as I walk through the streets. Even before I met her it seemed I was looking for Yara. I knew that she struggled to accept love. I was too young to understand consequences. I thought everything would work out in my life, that the wrongs would right themselves and that eventually she would be okay. That’s not how it works. I know that now.

The bars here are all named things with a The at the beginning: The Porcupine, The Imperial, The Glassblower, The Oyster and Mirth. I look into their windows, eyeing the bartenders. I am looking for Yara.

She is everywhere and nowhere. I see her in the people. She Americanized herself to fit in, but now I see that she is London. How can a person be like a city? Her attitude about life is damp, but she pushes forward with an old elegance. She doesn’t complain about what’s happened to her or why. It’s the damp she lives in, it’s part of who she is and she’s fine with that. I’ve seen so many others question, and cry, and rage against the whys of their life. Yara doesn’t waste time on that. She has somewhere to be and she goes. She grew up with adjectives. She’s interesting and old like the gothic buildings that line the street. If you go inside many of them they’re modern and young—that’s like Yara too.

I love London.

In the afternoon I am tired of walking and looking, looking and walking. I find a place to sit and eat called The Counter at the Delaunay. There is a blue and white pattern on the floor that I can’t stop looking at. I sit across from grandparents who have brought their young grandchildren for lunch. We’re all in a booth by the window. The boy and girl look like twins.

“Can I see your lovely smile? Show me your lovely smile,” the grandfather says as he holds up a camera.

“Do Mister and Missus Grumpy need to go to the toilet?” the grandmother asks. “You’ll let me know, won’t you? Perhaps a little later then.”

I’m fascinated by the way they speak to each other, the attentiveness and tone.

We don’t speak to our children that way in America. We don’t direct as many adjectives at them. I think of the songwriters I love, all from here, this place of giant red buses and gothic spires. Steve Mac; Camille Purcell; Paul Epworth; Goddard, Worth, and Lennon. Their grandparents must have taken them to lunch and told them to show their lovely smiles, and offered them bites of their bacon roll—“Would you like a tiny bite, then? It’s crispy on the inside, but the bread is very soft and warm…my word! Look how many swirly twirly shapes and designs are on this table! You’re very posh, aren’t you, my lovelies! Posh and perfectly darling…”

I understand Yara more by listening to her people. The longer I walk, and listen, and stay, the more she makes sense to me. Tigers don’t make sense in a zoo—they conform to the zoo, but they don’t make sense. I order a tea the way she used to drink it, and something called porridge and banana. The girl who brings them to me asks if I want honey for my porridge.

“Yes, please,” I say.

Yara used to put honey on her oatmeal, I remember that. I’m doing this all to feel close to her. Maybe then I can find her.

The porridge is delicious. How did she ever eat oatmeal when she was used to eating this? It’s creamy and decadent. I get honey on everything—my hands, and the table, and my clothes. I want to write a song about that too—following your girl to London and getting honey on everything. She causes me to write songs without knowing it.

On the fifth day I’m there I get a call from my mother. My father had a heart attack. I run to my hotel and toss everything into my luggage. Everything is a blur after that—the cab ride to the airport, the flight home on which the wifi doesn’t work, the hot coffee I spill on my pants. My cousin is there to pick me up. Her face looks grave. I don’t think about Yara again until after the funeral. Then I feel more desperate. People die. We are not permanent. We have to hurry if we want things.