Page 31 of Soft Erasure

There were two officers in the hallway. Younger than Pembroke. Older than the buzz-cut at the clinic. Their uniforms were pressed, their boots oiled. The taller one held a laminated card up to the gap.

COURTESY PERMIT: UNIT 6B WELFARE ACCESS AUTHORIZED (NOISE / MALFUNCTION / SAFETY)

Below the bold, in pale gray, almost background:

Template T. CABOT v3

The signature at the bottom was an A. The A was the A I had drawn at the lobby desk that morning and had not finished.

The A had finished itself.

Or someone had finished it.

Or it had been finished for me before my stroke ever mattered.

I held the gap.

“That isn’t my signature.”

“Ma’am. The signature is on file.”

“The signature is half my signature.”

“Ma’am. The permit is signed.”

Behind the two officers, at the elevator: Matthew.

Matthew was not in the sweater. He was in a suit, not the dove-gray. The at-the-Institute suit. The distinction was not incidental. He dressed for roles the way he dressed for rooms. The suit had a single line of stitching at the lapel the dove-gray sweater didn’t.

I knew the stitching. That was the thing I didn’t say out loud. I knew it because I had started, somewhere in the last week, to keep a record of him. The band kept a record of me. I had begun to keep one of him.

Which sweater meant the apartment. Which suit meant the Institute. This suit meant he would be gone by four.

I had a column in me now for where he was. The column ran on its own. So did the count. So did the song.

I was listening for his step before I heard it, a habit I hadn’t agreed to. The agreeing had been done somewhere I was not invited.

He was at the calculated distance. He didn’t come toward the door. The hallway was the hallway and his body was inside the building’s logic, fitted to it. Not turning, just present.

His ring caught the chrome trim on the elevator door.

The seam threw a thin line of green along the wall.

The line of green ended at my doorframe.

It was a thread, not a beam. The same green as the velvet pouch, as the watermark. The only green for half a mile.

I closed my eyes for a second. I opened them.

“Want stability now, Amber.”

Matthew’s voice. Soft. The volume of a leash laid across a lap.

“No.”

“Are you sure.”

“Yes.”