At the shine in her eyes, the plea in her voice, my heart turns to mush. I relent, pressing the call button on the elevator.
Inside my apartment, Mar takes in the bouquet on the kitchencounter. “Congratulations on theNew York Times. I called but you didn’t answer. Just like you didn’t respond to any of my texts.”
I pour myself a glass of water. “I kinda unplugged yesterday.”
She watches me take a sip. “I know. People have been calling me to ask where you are.”
“People?” I ask, knowing better than to hope that includes one specific person. Knowing better but hoping anyway.
“Nadia, Alison, Grayson from the Infinitude Symposium.”
Right. The conference I’m booked to speak at tomorrow evening. I’m grateful for my cousin handling work-related correspondence when I clearly haven’t been up for it. Who will run interference for me once Maral’s no longer here? My eyes prick again, and I crumple onto a stool.
“Does Shanthi know?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “I didn’t want to tell her before talking to you.”
I make a face. “You told Meredith.”
She winces. “I’m sorry about that. She was raving about her new job, and how much happier she is working in educational publishing—how it was fulfilling this dream she’d forced into dormancy for so long. I’ve been…” Her shoulders sag. “I’ve been feeling that myself, and I guess I just couldn’t hold it in.”
“So you pulled an Ana?” I say.
She seems encouraged by my joke. “Blurters gonna blurt.”
I sigh. “I wish you’d told me.”
“Because you’d have been so receptive,” she says.
Her statement settles on my chest like a heavy stone. Sweet Mar. She’s denied herself for so long, for my sake. And the one person she should have been able to talk to wasn’t there for her. My petulance retreats like the tide, replaced by guilt. “I wish you’d felt comfortable enough to confide in me. I’m sorry I wasn’t a safe place for you.”
Her eyes dart up to mine, and there’s so much in them—hesitancy, anticipation…hope. “I should have told you anyway.” She shakes her head. “I don’t think I realized how much it was calling me until I forced myself to stop and, like, listen to it. When I met with Kamila, she told me about this role they were looking to fill at the MPA, and it made it all seem so…possible.”
She met her grad school friend, Kamila, for lunch a month ago when she was here for some urban planning conference. Now that I remember, Mar was particularly pensive afterward, less talkative on the podcast episode we recorded that afternoon.
“You’ve been pursuing this for a month?” I ask. This has all been happening under my nose and I’ve been so oblivious. So self-involved that my favorite person in the world has been struggling with this life-changing decision without my support.
“The conversation started a month ago,” she says. “I had an introductory call with her team. But it’s been ramping up over the past couple weeks, lots of emails, defining the role, and then I met everyone in person when we were in Boston.” She looks appropriately contrite saying this last part.
And it all clicks into place. Keeping her phone close to her chest, being late for the train in Boston the other morning, wearing her lucky dress—not sex-lucky but interview-lucky.
Air judders out of my lungs, and my nose burns. Everything—all of this—without my even knowing. I should have been in her corner, cheering her on, wishing the best for her. She deservedat leastthat much from me.
I can’t go back in time and fix that. But I can do the next best thing—I can be here in this present moment. And in every moment after.
I round the counter and pull her into a hug. At first she remains still, in shock, then her arms come around me with such speed it’s as if she thinks I’ll disappear if she doesn’t clutch me to her.
“I’m so happy for you,” I say into her hair, my voice shaky with tears.
“Yeah,” she says slowly. “You soundrealhappy.”
“This is happy crying,” I wail.
She squeezes me, not letting go. “You don’t have to be happy,” she says. “I’ll settle for acceptance.”
“You’ve got both. And don’t worry,” I qualify, “I’m still very sad for me.”
She laughs wetly and then pulls away from me. “Sad and smelly,” she says, looking down at her dress, wrinkled now from embracing my sweaty body. “How long since you showered?”
