Mike moves to Sara Laughs

On July 3, 1998, Michael Noonan leaves 14 Benton Street for good, a departure that turns his long-standing intention to return to Sara Laughs into a final break with his former home. He carries a Powerbook and two suitcases, but also takes a ream of paper and a photograph of Johanna: small, deliberate objects that make the uncertain prospect of writing again inseparable from the memory of his wife.

Departure from 14 Benton Street

Having loaded his car, Michael starts backing down the driveway, then stops and goes back inside. The house feels deserted despite its intact furnishings and working electricity. Its rooms seem to echo, and the light is dusty; the narrator likens the place to a faithful lover left behind without understanding why. The image gives the departure a personal charge: the house is not merely an address being vacated but a companion Michael cannot bring himself to leave without one last return.

The paper and the photograph

In his study, the VDT is covered against the dust. Michael opens a desk drawer and finds four reams of paper. He takes one, then turns back for the provocative photograph of Johanna in her swimsuit, which he had placed in the wide center drawer. He slides the photograph halfway into the paper wrapping, like a bookmark. If he manages to write again, he imagines encountering Johanna around page 250. The gesture joins a practical tool for possible work to a keepsake of the person whose absence remains at its center.

A final break and a deferred return

Michael leaves the house, locks the back door, and drives away; he never returns. The departure is therefore not a temporary move, even though he has not covered the furniture or shut off the power, and he recognizes that his plan to resume writing may fail quickly. He has also felt drawn to inspect the extensive work being done at Sara Laughs, but an unarticulated conviction keeps him from going there merely to look: when he comes to Sara again, he feels, it should be to unpack and stay. Leaving Benton Street thus marks both an ending and a threshold toward a different home, while the future of his writing remains uncertain.