“Fine,” I said.“I’ll do it.Just like I’ve done everything.”
“You didn’t pick up the balloons,” Fox lifted their mouth from the recorder long enough to say.“Bobby did.”
“I meant—”
“And Millie put up the decorations.”
“Yes, but I—”
“And Keme and I moved the furniture in spite of my bad back.”
“Your back is fine,” I snapped.“You challenged Keme to a somersault race the other day.And I came up with the ideas!That’s the real work!”
“Playing the martyr,” Fox said, raising the recorder again.“What an attractive look.”
I stalked out of the room.
A flurry of movement and Millie’s breathless “Dash!”made me walk faster and put my hand up.
“I didn’t see anything,” I said.(I had practice by this point; the two of them had been dating for months.) “Although as a reminder, public spaces, etc., etc.”
“You almost saw Keme,” Millie said—and she was standing in front of the door to the den, arms spread like I might try to charge past her.“You know it’s bad luck!”
Was it?I’d thought that was only for weddings, but at this point, I honestly had no idea.
I found Indira in the kitchen.She had the water running in the sink, and her back was to me as she stared out the window.She wasn’t moving.
I stopped.Waited.
After a while, I reached past her and shut the water off.
Indira shook her head, trying to smile, and pressed a tissue under each eye.“I’m sorry,” she said.The words wanted to be bright, but they came out thick and labored.A few seconds later, she added, “This is so silly.”
I put my arm around her, and to my surprise, Indira turned in, so that the movement became a hug.
It’s hard, when you have another person in your arms, not to be aware in a very immediate way how fragile we all are.How easily everything breaks.
“I’m fine,” Indira said, and she stepped back, wiping her eyes.“I’m fine.This is ridiculous.”
“It’s not ridiculous,” I said.“You love him.For heaven’s sake, Indira, you practically raised him.”
She gave a smile and an automatic shake of her head.
“Yes,” I said.“You did.”
Her fingers tightened around the tissue, and she looked out the window again.On the bluffs, the hemlocks grew thick and tangled, and beyond them, sunlight winked on the deep blue of water.
“Do you know how we met?”she asked.
I shook my head.
“It was outside the Keel Haul.I’d just come out, and he was passing on the sidewalk, and he threw a gum wrapper on the ground.I told him to pick it up.”
I winced.
“Nicely, of course,” Indira said with a laugh.
“I’m sure he loved that.”
