He'll get it later. He'll get it himself. Three words, and I know what they mean because I've been reading these words for days now —I got it. I can do it. I'll get it later. You don't have to come every day.
I try once more. "The doctor said ahead of schedule. That's really—"
"Yeah." He picks up his phone. "She did."
The sentence doesn't land so much as evaporate. I watch it disappear into the space between us — a space that used to be three feet and is now the size of everything we're not saying.
It's the door again.
Every ending in this apartment happens at the door. I put on my coat. I check that everything is done — pills on the table, water refilled, phone charging on the arm rest where he can reach it, Bagel fed, Poutine's bowl topped up because Poutine isthe kind of cat who will stare at you from whatever high surface she's colonized until her bowl is exactly full.
He's on the couch. The magazine is on the coffee table, still closed. The spine is uncracked.
"Okay," I say. "I'm heading out."
He looks up. For one second I think I see something — a flicker, a pull, the shadow of a word that starts to form and then doesn't. But it's gone before I can catch it, and maybe it was never there. Maybe I just wanted it to be there because wanting things is apparently the one skill I can't design out of myself.
"So — tomorrow?" I say. "I'll come by in the morning. Same time."
He opens his mouth. Closes it. Then:
"You don't have to come every day."
The words land very quietly. Like snow on snow. Like words that were always going to be said and were just waiting for the right silence to fall into.
"I — what?"
"I mean—" He runs a hand over his face. "You've got the Bellini thing. That proposal. And Derek's still sending stuff, right? You've got your own — you've got a lot going on. You don't need to keep—"
He stops. He's not looking at me. He's looking at the spot on the coffee table where the magazine is, the one I brought him that he didn't open.
"I just mean," he says, quieter, "you don't have to."
Every word is kind. Every word is reasonable. Every word is a door being held open for me, politely, gently, and he's even doing the work for me.
I don't need you here.
"Okay," I say. My voice doesn't break. I'm proud of that. I am the woman who watched herself come apart in the mirror andput herself back together and is still standing here, still upright, still capable of the syllableokaydelivered at the correct weight.
"I'll just — yeah. I'll text you."
"Okay."
Twookays. The entire dismantling of whatever this was, conducted in the most civilized syllable in the English language.
I turn toward the door. I'm reaching for the handle when something warm presses against my ankle. I look down.
Bagel. Ten pounds of orange against my boot. He rubs his head along the side of my calf and looks up, and his eyes are the particular shade of gold that means nothing and everything, and his purr starts — slow, deliberate, the specific frequency cats use when they've decided you belong to them, which is not your decision to argue with.
He doesn't care about eight-to-ten-week timelines. He doesn't care about healing bones or insurance cards or the correct distance to stand in an examination room. He just knows I'm at the door, and the door is wrong.
I crouch. I scratch the spot behind his ear — the one that makes his purr double in volume, the one I found by accident during the first week and have been using since like a cheat code. His head tilts into my hand. His body is warm and certain.
"See you later, buddy," I say.
I stand. I don't look at Ethan. If I look at Ethan I will see the thing I can't unsee: that this is the shape of the end, and the end is quiet.
I open the door. The cold hits immediately — the particular February cold of a Montreal walk-up, where the landing outside your door is still winter.
