At the beginning of last week, the tree in front of our apartment window was still half-covered in leaves. We could sit at the dining room table and brilliant red leaves filled our view, obscuring the scaffolding some workers had erected against one wall of the Whaling Museum across the street. But the wind and the rain of the past week and a half gradually stripped leaves from the tree; we’d see small red leaves dotting the glistening road beneath our windows; sometimes a few leaves would flutter away while we watched. The workers finished the work across the street, and took the scaffolding down. A particularly strong wind came up, stripping most of the rest of the leaves away, revealing the freshly-pointed red brick wall beyond.

A few leaves still cling tenaciously to the dun-colored tree branches. But now the view from our window is a view of late fall: wide open, hiding nothing.