In the morning the sky was the color of loneliness, and in the jaundiced light of her bedside lamp, the walls seemed to close in on her like a migraine. The phone call from Maya and Blue had latched like an infant to a breast at the back of her mind, a small incessant tug, a hunger. She made instant coffee in the microwave, turned on her laptop and sat on her couch with both, hoping to distract herself with work. There were so many letters to answer. It was something that Hannah both loved and hated about her job. So many people sought out her counsel, and most of the time it amused her to be perceived as someone who knew things, and perhaps in moments, she believed that she really did. Other times the sense of being something she wasn’t made her solar plexus ache like someone had hurled a baseball through it.
Henry’s mother, Vivian, had given her the job at the paper. Even before disaster had struck, Vivian had always been kind to Hannah, intuiting, Hannah suspected, that her parents were...not very loving. Now that the two of them shared the bond of pain, Vivian was even kinder.
“It doesn’t pay much, I’m afraid,” Vivian had said, “but nothing is easier and less taxing than dishing out advice—which is why everyone feels the need to give it so freely.”
Hannah had secretly wanted to write obituaries instead. She’d thought there might be something in the reviewing of a life that might reveal the secret of how one went about having one. Or at least on her better days that was why she had wanted the job. On her not-so-better days, Hannah wanted to know all the ways a person could die so she could know what to avoid.
Now Hannah opened the first letter of the morning and sighed. Dear Miss Know-It-All: My neighbor’s dog barks incessantly. I’m going crazy! What should I do? Not for the first time, Hannah wondered what kind of people took the time to write in to an advice columnist. She decided that most of them were probably like her, reclusive and frightened, hoping that seeing their words in print might offer proof of their existence, something they could cut out and tape to their fridge the way an Everest climber marks their place in history with a flag. They often signed their letters “Anonymous,” which Hannah suspected was more an attempt at accuracy than privacy.
Most of the letters answered themselves, the writers already knowing what they wanted to do but looking for permission to do it. People were always looking for permission to be who they were, to feel what they felt, which was, of course, always the thing that scared them. She tore through a few more letters, trying to pick out the most interesting ones—but they all seemed like the same problems, the same answers. Why didn’t people ever change? Always stuck in ruts that made them unhappy but unwilling to give them up. She caught her reflection in the mirror beside her bed, frowned, looked away. The clock said 10:00 a.m.—it was time to go see Henry. She got up, got dressed, buttoned her raincoat against the day.
It was cold for summer, and the rain was dirty, splashing from its puddles up into her shoes. On the way to the Metro, she saw a group of girls, four of them, laughing as they raced down the street, reminding her so much of Maya and Blue and Renee, of those times when even rainy days felt sunny. Hannah watched them live inside the hug of friendship, her longing like talons inside her.
By the time she reached the care facility, her pants were plastered to her skin. An image of the beach popped into her mind, its warm sand, the rupture of ocean spray, a vibrant sun spoked with shiny beams. She buried the thought, or tried to. The long-term care facility, usually strangely comforting in its familiarity, today seemed as cold and sterile as an autopsy suite. The sound of her footsteps down the empty hall echoed in the aching hollow of her chest.
Henry was in his wheelchair, eyes glazed and fixed on the wall. She’d fallen for those eyes back when they were fourteen and she’d walked into her favorite bagel shop one morning and there was a new person behind the counter—Henry. She recognized him from school, though they never talked and rarely crossed paths. He’d taken the part-time gig to pitch in for his college tuition, though his parents were against it, said he didn’t need to. He was so responsible like that, so determined.
She started going every day, and when the tinkling doorbell announced her, he would glance up from beneath a flop of bangs with this shy, delighted grin, almost like he’d been waiting for her. Each time he looked at her like that, she’d get this acrobatic tickle in her stomach, a kind of intense internal smile. Soon, she noticed he was tucking in his shirts, his hair began to have comb streaks in it and he was taking more time to select her bagel—always choosing the biggest ones. Then an extra packet of cream cheese began appearing in her to-go bag.
He had a boss that ordered him around with mumbling, indecipherable words, and one day Henry did a perfect imitation of him just loud enough for Hannah to hear. She’d erupted in giggles, the sound surprising even her, and he had beamed at her with such unabashed glee—as if making her laugh was the best thing he’d ever done. A week later he wrote a note on a napkin and tucked it into her bag with her order. Do you want to go to a movie with me? He’d supplied check boxes with preset answers: (1) Yes. (2) I’ll think about it. (3) Ha ha not in a million years, and even then still no. The following day when she bought her bagel, she handed him the note back with her cash. She’d checked yes.
That first date she was so nervous, but when he tripped over his own shoelace and crashed into a cardboard cutout of Tom Cruise and sent their popcorn flying, she realized he was way more anxious than she was. “Meant to do that,” he’d said and proceeded to bump into multiple objects, including her, until they reached their seats. She’d loved his desire to make her laugh and his efforts to win her—his cologne and scrubbed face and ironed shirt. She’d relaxed until the lights dimmed and her breath caught being next to him in the dark. They’d sat with their arms slightly touching and her skin tingled every time he shifted, his crisp shirt brushing against her bare arm. Her hyperawareness of his nearness was something new to her, so magical and distracting. The movie was some stylish indie that was clearly meant to impress her, but she had such trouble concentrating on anything other than him that she couldn’t have named a single character or plot point. Afterward he walked her home. The rain had just let up and the bright glow of streetlights echoed off wet roads, the sky washed clean and glossy. He put his jacket around her shoulders, and they bumped teasingly into each other the whole way home just to have that contact. He told her about his dreams and plans for the future and she told him about hers, and already it seemed like they were talking about theirs. They reached her building and he lingered in her doorway, working up his courage. She was so excited at the possibility he might kiss her that she shook with adrenaline. Finally, he leaned in, his pupils dilated and shiny with what looked like love. The moment their lips touched felt like a match against a striking surface, friction and heat turning her whole body into a spark. She’d never been so purely alive or so happy to be so.
They were nearly inseparable after that. Everyone said they were too young to be so serious. That it was puppy love. That it wouldn’t last. She was so glad she didn’t listen. It was almost as if they sensed that their time together would be interrupted. Even when they were apart each night, they Skyped until they fell asleep and then kept their laptops on so they could wake to each other in the morning. She always woke up earlier than he did so she could see his soft expression when he blinked awake and realized she was there. How seen she had felt in his gaze, how beautiful. He couldn’t have known what that meant to her, just to be looked at, just to see in someone else’s face that she affected him. Just a reaction, any reaction at all.