“That’s exactly how aquariums work.”
Molly was three years younger than me and professionally unimpressed by everything.
She taught third grade in Evanston, owned twelve houseplants with human names, and believed no adult should be trusted if they claimed not to like breakfast food.
She called me most days.
I answered when I could.
Which was less often than I told myself.
The afternoon before she died, I was preparing a presentation for a sportswear company whose new campaign had become “an emergency” because someone in regional marketing disliked the wordmovement.
Molly called at six-twenty.
Her name appeared on my screen while twelve people argued through a video conference.
I declined the call and typed:
Can I call you tomorrow? This week is trying to kill me.
Her reply came less than a minute later.
Rude. I was going to offer you free food. Tomorrow, then.
I added a heart.
Then I put the phone facedown and spent another two hours discussing whethermovementsounded political.
At nine the next morning, my father called.
I ignored him because I was in a taxi and he never called before breakfast unless he needed help resetting a password.
He called again.
Then my mother.
Then my father.
By the fourth call, I knew something had happened.
I answered.
The rest of that morning existed only in pieces.
My mother saying Molly’s name.
A hospital corridor.
My father wearing two different socks.
A doctor with kind eyes explaining an aneurysm none of us had known existed.
The wordsuddenrepeated by several people, as if repetition might make it easier to understand.
It did not.
Molly had been twenty-six.
