The only emails I returned were from prospective landlords or my students, toward whom I had been trying to be more professional. In an effort to butter them up, I had also removed the class participation component of their final grades. I met with Sara in a coffee shop and answered her questions about graduate programs and let her outline her dream of one day studying in London. Her enthusiasm made me feel like a fraud. I recouped some sense of myself as an authority figure by paying for her matcha latte while she was in the bathroom.
The group chat picked up and carried on without me, a flurry of links and screenshots and questions about what the fuck old classmates, the government, or our bodies were up to. I did my best to give everyone some space without crossing over into the silent treatment, dropping in a supportive haha or sending a heart emoji when one felt needed. After a week or so of “space,” I sent Amirah and Tom an Edible Arrangement to say congratulations. Amirah texted a photo of the ridiculous, brightly colored basket with the message tom’s allergic to strawberries . . . saboteur, then jk thank you they’re delicious. I wrote back, could we get a drink soon? just like green tea and 45-50 mins groveling, max. Amirah left it for two full hours before replying, sounds good, will see if aritzia’s selling hair shirts. Buoyed by this success, I sent an Edible Arrangement to Amy too. I wrote, “I’m very sorry, please call me,” on the card. She didn’t.
I drank three liters of water a day, which meant, give or take a few half hours here and there, I spent the rest of my time on the toilet. I figured this was life: I’d spend the next twenty years alternatingly hydrating and pissing, then all the water on earth would dry up and I would know it was time to die. The apartments I viewed were dilapidated and out of my price range. I started looking at places in Kingston.
One day after physio, the Australian chased Merris into the parking lot.
“M-dawg!” he said, horribly. “Forgot your resistance bands, my girl!”
“What a shame,” said Merris. “They’re such fun.”
The Australian did not return her smile. He rested both hands on the roof of the car and spoke to her like she was a child refusing to wear her coat outdoors in winter. “It’s so important that you do your exercises,” he said. “At this stage in life, if you don’t guard your mobility, you really can lose it for good.”
Merris took the bands from him but didn’t say anything else. In the car she was quiet too.
“What does he know?” I said, turning up the radio. “He probably has that strain of super-chlamydia koalas invented.”
Merris didn’t respond.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “Really, I’m—”
“Enough, Maggie, please,” she said. “I am tired and sore. I feel about a million years old, and I don’t want to go over it all again. It’s not your fault.”
“It is kind of my fault.”
“Well, it’s not only your fault,” she said. “Maybe I’m being punished.”
I asked her what she thought she was being punished for.
She flipped down the sun visor and examined her face in the mirror. She sighed. “Oh, I don’t know. Idleness, pettiness, vanity . . . pick one.” Merris ran her hands over her neck, pulling the skin taut. “Do you know how much money I spend each year on creams?”
We drove past a Lenten celebration, a cluster of old people lifting the Virgin Mary high over their heads. I realized I’d left my indicator on, that it was still clicking away to warn others about a right turn I had no intention of making. I switched it off. On the radio, a man who owned a furniture warehouse screamed about unbeatable deals.
“Betty told me you have a daughter,” I said. I kept my eyes on the road and tried to radiate a noninvasive empathy. Merris flipped the visor back up.
“Well, there it is, isn’t it?” she said. “Late-onset maternal instinct, misapplied, with unpleasant consequences.”
I snuck a look at her, and someone honked at me for drifting too close to the next lane. “Why didn’t you tell me about her?”
“You didn’t ask.”
She was right, which made it worse. I had probably asked her fewer than three questions about herself this entire year, maybe our entire relationship. We pulled into the driveway and sat there with the car idling, the heated seat warming the backs of my already hot legs.
“That’s terrible,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” said Merris. “I’m sure that was part of the appeal. Relationships with young people are very straightforward, they basically just want to talk about themselves. Lazy of me, really, to accept intimacy without any risk.”
“What happened with . . . ?”
“Danielle?” Merris sighed again. “I don’t know. I think I couldn’t be what she needed, and she couldn’t forgive me for it. Her whole childhood, she was reaching out for something that, for whatever reason, I couldn’t or didn’t want to give. And then her father got sick, and we handled it in completely opposing ways—it’s all a bit miserable. Let’s not get into it.”
Merris pulled on her gloves and readjusted her scarf, acting out the beginning of an exit. I wanted to tell her I’d listen to her talk about anything, to march inside right now, make a pot of tea, and ask her to start from the beginning. I told her she’d listened to more than enough of my miserable tales, and if she ever did want to get into it—
“I don’t,” she said. “Thank you.”
“You’ve been so generous,” I told her. “I wish I’d been a better friend to you.”
“Oh, Maggie,” she said. “We’re not friends. We’re just two people having a hard time.”
I turned the key and the soft hum of the motor went quiet. It was raining a little, and I could see Inessa peering out her bedroom window on the second floor. When she noticed me looking up at her, she snapped the curtain shut.
“I’d like, if you wanted, to try to be friends,” I said. “I know my living here was probably a step too far, but I wasn’t just hanging out with you because I was having a breakdown. I think you’re kind of amazing.”
Merris laughed lightly, and I clenched every muscle in my body.
“There’s a joke in there about which of us really took the step too far, but I don’t have time to think of it,” she said. “Anyway, must get inside and mess around with these bands. I could lose my mobility, you know.”
She opened the car door and unbuckled her seat belt, slowly pulling one leg and then the other out onto the ground. I helped her into the house, as I did every week. We stood in the foyer and she said, “Thank you, dear,” and I went down into the basement and lay flat on the floor.
I moved out a few days later, very early in the morning, mostly to avoid Inessa. I left a thank-you card and a box of fancy dried fruit. I had stayed up late the night before, dusting and scrubbing every surface, trying to reset the place to how it had been. As I finished a final round on the bathroom fixtures, Lydia came wheezing down the stairs, jumped on my bed, and stayed there. The next morning I kissed her goodbye, letting her huge tongue go a little bit in my mouth, something I usually fought against, but which she seemed perpetually desperate to make happen. I opened the door to upstairs and she scrambled off, to eat and drool on things and sleep in the sun. I left my keys on the kitchen counter with my gift and took a bus to Kingston, where my dad picked me up.