Hope to hear from you soon,
J
*
“Funny Girl? You said this was your favorite?” Emmett asked Tallie, slipping the DVD case off the shelf and holding it up.
“Definitely.”
“Do you want to watch it?”
“It’s pretty long.”
“I don’t mind if you don’t. Seems relaxing,” he said, flipping it over. “I’m guessing it’s funny?” He smiled, looking at her.
“You’re clever,” she said. “You were upset earlier, when the lights went out. You’re feeling better?”
“I feel like being quiet, watching this, if that’s okay. I’m really comfortable here.”
“It’s hygge. You’ve heard of it? The Danish word? It’s about making things cozy, comforting. It’s like an American fad now, but sort of a way of life for some people. Making things as comfy as possible…it’s what I do—” Tallie stopped and changed the expression on her face, like an engine slowing, then revving back up. “I use the idea of it in my classroom.”
“I’ve never heard of it, but I feel it here. It’s overwhelming. And I mean that as a compliment,” Emmett said.
“I accept it.”
（The jumping candlelight cuts through the rising tea-mug steam. The steam looks like cartoon smoke. Six tea lights in a half-moon on the table. The walls of Tallie’s living room are the color of creamed coffee.）
*
They started Funny Girl, and Tallie picked up her knitting and began slipping the needles and yarn through her fingers. Fast. She barely glanced at it, knitting around and around, scooting small neon-colored plastic markers across the cord connecting the needles when she got to them. Emmett watched, appreciating how soothing and hypnotic it was. She mouthed along with parts of the dialogue—the songs, too. He enjoyed it for a while but soon found he couldn’t focus. He hated that he’d contacted Joel, the subterfuge of it. If Tallie got something out of the emails she couldn’t have gotten otherwise, when he left her, he wouldn’t feel so guilty. Even when he did dumb shit, his tender conscience was a crutch. It’d plagued him his whole life. He took on other people’s emotions, absorbed them without wanting to, like an abandoned sponge.
“Y’know earlier when you were talking about how it feels for Joel to get something he wanted so much…his baby…I’m sure part of it does feel wrong and weird for him. Doing it without you, since he always thought it would be you,” Emmett said.
If what he said surprised Tallie, she didn’t let on. Instead, she kept her face plain, shrugged.
“What’s something small about him you miss? Christine would drink from my water bottle. I’d leave it somewhere and come back to a pink lipstick print on it that tasted like strawberries or cherries. I miss that.”
Tallie put down her knitting and paused the movie.
“A sweet memory. Thank you for sharing it with me,” she said, crossing her legs on the couch.
“I don’t really talk about this stuff to anyone,” he said.
“That’s why I mean it when I say thank you for sharing it with me.”
“You’re easy to talk to. I’m sure people tell you that all the time.”
“I’ve heard it before, yes,” Tallie said.
Barbra Streisand was frozen on the TV screen—a silent witness to their conversation.
“It’s okay if I mention something I don’t miss about him first?” she asked.
“Such a rebel.”
“I am.” She smiled at him. “Joel was obsessed with the news and would get constant notifications on his phone. Wanted to keep CNN on all day long. Drove me mad! I stopped keeping up with the news after he moved out. I hate it.”
“Understood,” Emmett said. Another reason to love Tallie—she hated the news as much as he did.
“A little thing I miss about him is that he would sometimes leave his bag of chips on the side of the couch when he was done instead of putting it back in the pantry. It used to annoy me, but I found myself missing it once he was gone. I’d put a bag of chips there myself, to feel like he was here. And this is embarrassing, but his…lunulae…the, um, half-moons on his fingernails. They’re really pretty. He has really nice hands. It sounds so ridiculous to say aloud now,” she said.
“Don’t be embarrassed, please. And it doesn’t sound ridiculous to me,” he reassured her.
Not much surprised Emmett, and not much sounded ridiculous to him, either. He had his own nights when he’d stayed up, wrecked and crying. The longest nights of his life. Nights he’d slept with Christine’s T-shirts on her side of the bed, hoping to wake up next to her. Nights he’d sat alone in the chair in his living room, rocking and rocking, thinking of Brenna, Brenna’s eyes, Brenna’s voice. Brenna had been real; he knew it. But where had she gone? There were wide cracks in his sanity, something he’d been so sure of before.