ONE MONTH BEFORE THEY LEFT THE CITY WHERE THEY WERE BUILDING THEIR LIVES TOGETHER, RACHEL BOOTH AND YOURI ZARAGOZA STOOD ON THE LAWN OUTSIDE THEIR DENVER BUNG A LOW AND WATCHED AS STRANGERS PICKED THROUGH THEIR BELONGINGS.
Gone was the iron Booth had bought just a year earlier; the clothes-drying rack went to a former colleague who had made a quick visit to say goodbye. The grill was getting interest from a few passersby, as were the how-to books Zaragoza had read on becoming a new father. A young man in a baseball cap lifted a Turkish coffee pot into the air, and motioned to Booth.
“How much?”
“Three bucks,” Booth said. “It’s gotta go.”
It was a warm, sunny, early fall morning in Denver, the kind of day on West 36th Avenue that made the married couple contemplate everything they’d miss about their West Highland home. Leaves rustled in the large oak out front; parents pushed baby strollers along the sidewalk; an old man waved as he walked his Labrador retriever; and a gas lawn mower purred in the distance.
“I absolutely love this place,” Booth, 35, said. She gestured toward Zaragoza, 43, who was dressed in a black T-shirt and stonewashed jean shorts. “Youri doesn’t want to move.” He was leaning against their covered porch, next to his brother-in-law who’d come from France to help them pack.
“It’s complicated,” Zaragoza said. “But I know this is the right decision for us.”
When they moved into their house, it would’ve been unfathomable to think they’d be liquidating nearly everything two and a half years later for a move to Lyon, France, where Zaragoza’s sister lives. They’d thought of their beige-brick one-story as a refuge, imagining a quiet life punctuated by long walks in the nearby park, beers together in the backyard, and sunsets that would make their friends who didn’t live in Colorado jealous. In the winter of 2020, Zaragoza proposed on the front porch. “A lot of memories were already made here for us,” said Booth, who grew up in Virginia and moved to Colorado 10 years ago. “It’s
