“I should have phoned you. I apologize.” Mrs. Crowley looks around, lifts her eyebrows for a second, and then puts her stuff （the coffee, the shopping bag） down on the small drop-leaf table. Hannah notices the lint on the floor. Mrs. Crowley wiggles a coffee free from the holder and hands it to Hannah. “I guessed cream and sugar.”
“Works for me.” She sips the coffee gratefully. Does she look like a beggar who just took a handout? She doesn’t care. She loves Luke’s mom now just for this. Maybe she will start having her coffee this way instead of black. It tastes like a cozy house, like care. She starts to wonder what has brought this woman here, and nervousness fills her body. I am meager, she thinks. This woman knows it. Why am I so meager? And how did she even know where I live?
Mrs. Crowley sips her own coffee. She gets lipstick on the cup. She breathes. Even her breaths are strong and confident. She gestures toward the shopping bag she brought. “I have some things of, of his.”
“Oh.” She stops being nervous. This feels nice, like she has, finally, been noticed. She sees Luke’s face so clearly then. He is laughing. He is waltzing by her at the restaurant carrying a tray with mozzarella sticks and dipping sauce. The couple next door makes one sound, and Mrs. Crowley turns her head.
“I thought you’d like to have them. Mary Jane and I have been getting the apartment cleaned out. Not much there in the way of big stuff, but you know: a thousand little things. I told him once he was a pack rat.” She laughs, but then there is a glimpse, a flash of hurt on her face even the blush can’t hide. Hannah starts to like his mother fully in this moment. Poor woman.
Hannah loves the coffee against her throat. She loves the perfect sweetness and cream. She is almost finished. She doesn’t know the etiquette. Should she take the stuff out of the bag now or wait until the woman leaves? “He kept a lot of stuff, yeah. Movie tickets, notes, fliers. Yeah.” She scolds herself. Stop saying yeah.
Mrs. Crowley walks around and looks out the window. “My goodness, I think about him a lot.” She puts her coffee down by the sofa. “You have a nice view here. I like the high windows.”
“Thanks. And, uh, he said that exact same thing. About the windows.” She lets out a polite laugh.
“He did?” Mrs. Crowley smiles gratefully. “Oh, that boy.” She sighs. “Anyway, I won’t keep you. I just wanted a quick visit.”
Hannah feels honored. She can’t believe she has even crossed this woman’s mind. “That was nice. Especially the coffee.”
“If you don’t want the stuff, don’t keep it for my sake. It’s a sweatshirt, a few pictures of the two of you. A mug with his name on it… just silly stuff, really.” Mrs. Crowley shrugs. She picks up her purse and starts to walk toward the door.
Hannah watches her. She glances at the stuff in the bag. Junk mostly, the stuff that probably avoided the garbage by a hair. Silly stuff. Did she give the important stuff—his guitar, the Navajo rug, the carved walking stick of his grandfather’s—to the veterinarian with her expensive purse and straight perfect teeth? Probably. It starts to hit her. Why didn’t they invite her to see his apartment one last time? To help them clean it out? She was there more than either of them ever were. She slept beside him in his bed. She bought bananas and oranges and put them on his counter. Was everything she left there—her makeup, a pair of flip-flops, the blanket she bought for their bed—assumed to be trash? She feels goose bumps. Jittery. She feels the way she felt in high school when she wanted to answer a teacher’s question. “I didn’t like it,” she spits out.
“What?” Mrs. Crowley turns. Her eyes are so focused, intense. She looks half frightened, bracing for something. Hannah’s heart races.
“I didn’t like how you sat with her the whole time at the funeral. How you touched her shoulder to comfort her. How you introduced her to everyone.” She starts to cry. “I was his girlfriend.”
Mrs. Crowley doesn’t answer at first. Hannah’s words echo in the quiet apartment. “I’m sorry you feel this way, dear. I was not trying to make you feel bad.”
“You did! You did.” How did she turn the conversation into this? It had been perfectly polite. The woman was leaving. What made her do this?
But she can’t stop. She swallows, chooses her words carefully. “My friends kept saying, Isn’t that his mother? Isn’t that his sister? Go sit with them. I couldn’t sit with you. I couldn’t even hug you in the hospital. I had no one to cry with. My mom is a… she doesn’t care. I lost him that night and I had no one. And I know I’m not good enough for you, I’m not the girl a nice guy like Luke brings home. You probably wanted to keep him from girls like me. I know this.” She holds the empty coffee cup, and her knees shake.