“Hello?” someone calls out. It sounds like an elderly woman. “Julia, is it? It’s Oliver here, with Vera!”
Who’s Vera?
“I bring lots of food! Braised pork belly, chili garlic chicken popcorn, Chinese barbecued pork . . .”
It’s the mention of food that bypasses all Julia’s insecurities. She’s been having nothing but canned tuna ever since Marshall left (Emma has been fed cereal and steamed veggies, which she largely refuses) and her stomach goes: Screw you, brain, I’m telling right arm to open the door. The door is opened, and Julia catches a glimpse of Oliver before a graying Asian woman pops in between them, wearing a huge smile.
“Ah, Julia! So nice to finally meet you. I’m Vera, of course, but you know that. I see you outside my teahouse the other day.”
“Oh.” Julia has no idea what to say to that. Why had she run away when Vera had spotted her outside the teahouse? That must have looked so strange. Something only a guilty person would do.
“Anyway, I have so much food for you!” Still beaming, Vera slides past Julia into the house.
Julia takes a step back, stunned. Did she invite Vera inside already? Maybe she did and she forgot because my god, there are a million things running through her mind, like: Where’s the food? I can smell really delicious food, and Who are all of these people? and Wow, it’s been a long time since I saw Oliver. Even though to most people, Oliver and Marshall look alike, Julia has always found numerous differences in their faces. Marshall was perhaps objectively the more good-looking of the two, with that sharp smile and excitingly wicked glint in his eyes, but Julia had always been more drawn to the kindness in Oliver’s face. Though right now, she’s too self-conscious to be drawn to anything. She’s so ashamed of how different she is now, no longer the girl he knew in high school. She looks away, unable to meet Oliver’s eyes.
“Come inside!” Vera calls out, as though this were her house. She flaps at Oliver and the other two people behind him. “Bring the food inside, I will heat them up.” She turns to Vera. “You have oven, right? And saucepans? The food have to be heat up properly, cannot microwave.”
“Uh . . .” Julia struggles to keep up. “Yeah. I have those things, but—”
Vera bends down, propping her hands on her knees. “Oh, hello, little girl. I’m Grandma Vera. Come help me in kitchen.” Without waiting for Emma to reply, Vera toddles off deeper into the house, humming to herself. “Where is kitch—ah, never mind, I find it!”
To Julia’s surprise, Emma unwraps herself from Julia’s leg. But she doesn’t follow Vera. She stands there, twirling her hair, staring with uncertainty.
Julia starts to say, “You don’t have to—”
Vera’s head pops out from behind a corner. “Oops, that is bathroom, not kitchen. Oh, I am lost. Where is my helper?”
One corner of Emma’s mouth twitches up into a small smile, and she totters after Vera. Julia stands there, mouth agape. What just happened?
“Sorry,” someone says. It’s a pretty South Asian girl who looks like she’s in her early twenties. “We didn’t mean to barge into your house.”
“Vera kind of took charge,” the guy next to her says, grimacing apologetically. Like the girl, he looks like he’s in his twenties. He looks like he’s mixed-race.
“That’s okay,” Julia says. “I’m Julia.”
“I’m Sana.”
“I’m Riki.”
They smile awkwardly at one other, then jump when Vera shouts, “Eh! Where is all the food? I am waiting!”
“Uh—” Sana lifts up a huge bag. “Is it okay if we—”
“Yeah, of course.” Julia steps out of their way and watches as Sana and Riki hurry toward the kitchen.
Oliver clears his throat and steps inside the house, both hands in his pockets. He gives her a bashful smile that takes her right back to their high school days. “Hey. It’s been a while.”
She nods, her throat all choked up. She doesn’t trust herself to speak, because now that she’s seeing Oliver in the flesh and hearing his voice, she’s reminded of what she’d been like as a teen, so full of confidence, her world a beautiful fireworks of possibilities. He must be so disappointed in how she’s turned out. After a while, she manages to say, “Yeah.”
“So, this is your house.” Oliver looks around. “It’s nice.”
“It’s a mess,” she says automatically, because present-day Julia can’t take a compliment, feels like a fraud whenever she’s given one. “Sorry,” she mumbles, because present-day Julia has to punctuate every sentence with an apology, as though she were sorry for existing at all. Marshall had hated that about her. Stop apologizing! God, you’re so pathetic, he’d snap, and she’d say, Sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll stop!
Oliver’s gaze snaps toward her and Julia freezes. She has no idea what he’s about to say, but it’ll probably be something along the lines of how gross she’s become, how slovenly, how disappointing. But the look in his eyes is sad and lost, and for a second, Julia feels some strange emotion welling up in her chest, then he breaks eye contact and the moment is gone. He turns his head instead and pauses when he sees the pile behind the door. Of bags full of things that are unmistakably Marshall’s. For the hundredth time, Julia gives herself an inward kick. Why hadn’t she done something with Marshall’s things after the cops came? But she hadn’t known what to do with them. She couldn’t really throw them out, not now that Marshall is dead. She also didn’t want to unpack them all and return them to their old spaces in the house because, well, why bother? He’s dead. And so she’d left them there, and now Oliver is staring at them with, quite rightly, confusion.
“Um, that’s—uh.” She struggles for an explanation and fails. Should she tell him that she’d packed them up before she heard about Marshall’s death? Or after? Definitely not after, right? Because then that would make her look so ruthless, a wife who couldn’t wait to get rid of her husband’s things as soon as she learned of his passing.
“Is this Marshall’s ski jacket?” Oliver bends over and picks up a black jacket.
“Yes.” Her insides churn.
“Oh, and that’s his old Star Wars Lego set.” Oliver gently folds up the ski jacket and places it on top of the pile of things.
He must think she’s the world’s worst person. Her insides are screaming at her to give him an explanation.
But when he looks at her, there’s nothing but that quiet sadness in his eyes. “Do you . . . need help taking these anywhere?”