want you there, if you were still going to be angry.”
Elliot yanked the door open as far as the latch would allow and thrust his body forward in all of its possibly infected glory. He jutted his chin out above the chain.
“Sorry I’m tripping up your happiness.” It came out more bitter than he intended.
“So am I,” said Julia without flinching, and her smile showed a trace of teeth. “I guess I’m here to try to make things perfect. Isn’t that stupid?”
“Let me guess: Dory doesn’t like the idea of someone hating her.” Even as the words came out, Elliot knew it wasn’t true. Dory had never been bothered by that.
Julia shook her head. “She misses you. But she respects your feelings, and your space.”
“But you don’t.”
“I guess not?” Julia shrugged and a hoarse laugh escaped. With one hand on her belly, she gazed down the hallway at the elevator, and Elliot realized he admired her for coming. For thinking that there was still something that could be done about him and the mess of regret that clung to him like a second skin.
“When are you due?” Sarah had taught him never to ask this, but it looked like Julia was hiding a beach ball under there.
“Five weeks or so.” Maybe she sensed him softening then, because she said, “Look, you guys were close, weren’t you? With everything going on, it might be nice to…make amends.”
“Nice for her, maybe.” He folded his arms. “Do you want that?”
Julia pressed her lips together as she declined to answer. “But it’s okay, isn’t it? That I came?”
“It’s okay,” he said. It was the longest face-to-face conversation he’d had in weeks.
She adjusted her cotton tote bag on her shoulder. “We don’t have to be friends.”
“We’re not.”
Julia nodded. Elliot watched her retreat down the hallway with wide, deliberate steps. When she reached the elevator she turned back to wave at him, her face unsmiling and inscrutable, as though signalling from a distant shore. And he waved back.
Quarantine Day Twenty-One
When twenty-one days had elapsed, Elliot put on a tank top and shorts and ran around the block. People stared and dodged him on the pavement. A mother walking grimly with her daughter jerked her child out of the way and glared as he sped by, even though Elliot had been nowhere near colliding with them. He called out an apology that was carried off on the breeze. He resisted the urge to strip, to feel the air on every inch of his body. The whispering scrape of his sneakers on the gritty sidewalk felt like a secret percussion to his victory lap.
As the sun began to set, he headed further afield, not stopping to plan a route or think about anything besides the cool air entering his lungs. Every green light was a path opening up, an invitation to surrender. Even the smog tasted good—sweet and salty. He was tempted to run to Sarah and Noah’s apartment, but they lived too far, so he sprinted crosstown on a street he wasn’t sure he’d ever been down before, feeling freer than he had in years. But the further he ran, the more self-conscious he became. The people he passed who weren’t bent on some errand or destination began to look less like citizens and more like odd, willful loners, dangerous and suspect. The changes he’d observed through his window held true on the ground and began to weigh on him. He slowed, losing steam after his sprint.
When he’d run about four miles, he spotted a staircase to the High Line. The elevated park was normally too crowded for runners at any time besides the early morning, but it was deserted now apart from a few tourists who shot him nervous glances as he approached at speed. One couple in particular, with visors and fanny packs, appeared determined to see through their holiday, although their body language conveyed only a diffuse dread. They stepped nearer to one another as he drew closer, as if expecting something to happen. As Elliot dashed past, he thought he could feel the electricity in the air mount and then dissolve, as though the invisible line that might bind them all together in every possible future had been pulled taut, snapped, and tied off by some industrious Fate. He hoped, for maybe the first time, for nothing to happen. Not then, not ever.
They should all be so lucky.
August 26, 2020, 11:04 a.m.
Hi. This is Owen. Leave me a message and I’ll call you