press against the sidewalk. The umbrella handle wobbles in my fist. I swing one arm out for balance. And with the rain misting around me and the hiss of traffic in the distance, I build myself back up—up, up, up—until I’m once again standing.
My nerves crackle. My heart ignites. I can feel the Ativan in my blood vessels, clearing them like clean water gushing through a disused hose.
One. Two. Three. Four.
I scrape one foot forward. A moment later, the other follows. I shuffle. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’m doing this.
Now I hear the traffic squalling closer, louder. Keep walking. I peek at the umbrella; it fills my vision, surrounds me. There’s nothing outside it.
Until it jolts to the right.
“Oh—sorry.”
I flinch. Something—someone—has bumped into me, knocked the umbrella aside; it rushes past, a blue blur of jeans and coat, and as I turn to watch, I see myself in a pane of glass: my hair in weeds, my skin damp, a tattersall umbrella protruding from my hand like an enormous flower.
And behind my reflection, on the other side of the window, I see the woman.
I’m at the coffee shop.
I stare. My vision bends. The awning overhead droops toward me. I shut my eyes, then open them again.
The entrance is within reach. I extend my arm, fingers trembling. Before they can grasp the handle, the door jerks open and a young man emerges. I recognize him. The Takeda boy.
It’s been more than a year since I saw him up close—in person, I mean, not through a lens. He’s taller now, his chin and cheeks a scrubland of blunt dark hair, but he still radiates that same ineffable Good Kid–ness I’ve learned to spot in young people, a secret halo orbiting their heads. Livvy’s got one. Ethan’s got one.
The boy—young man, I suppose (and why can’t I remember his name?)—props the door open with one elbow, beckons me in. I notice his hands, those fine-boned cellist’s hands. I must look derelict, yet still he’s treating me this way. His parents raised him right, as GrannyLizzie would say. I wonder if he recognizes me. I suppose I’d scarcely recognize myself.
As I drift past him, entering the shop, my memory thaws. I used to drop in here a few times a week, on those mornings when I was too rushed to brew coffee at home. The store blend tasted pretty bitter—I assume it still does—but I liked the ambience of the place: the cracked mirror with the day’s specials scrawled on it in Magic Marker, the countertops with their Olympic-ring stains, the speaker system piping oldies. “Unpretentious mise-en-scène,” Ed remarked the first time I brought him there.
“You can’t say those words in the same sentence,” I told him.
“Just unpretentious, then.”
And unchanged. The hospital room crushed me, but this is different—this is terra cognita. My eyelashes flutter. I loft my gaze over the gaggle of customers, study the menu tacked above the cash register. A cup now costs $2.95. That’s a fifty-cent hike since I was last here. Inflation is a bitch.
The umbrella swings low, grazes my ankles.
So much I haven’t seen in so long. So much I haven’t felt, haven’t heard, haven’t smelled—the radiant warmth of human bodies, pop music from decades past, the punch of ground beans. The whole scene unreels in slow motion, in golden light. For a moment I shut my eyes, inhale, remember.
I remember moving through the world the way you move through air. I remember striding into this coffee shop, a winter coat wrapped tight around me or a sundress billowing at the knees; I remember brushing against people, smiling at them, talking to them.
When I open my eyes again, the gilt light fades. I’m in a dim room, next to windows rinsed with rain. My heart speeds.
A bolt of red flames by the pastry counter. It’s her, inspecting Danishes. She lifts her chin, catches sight of herself in the mirror. Tugs a hand through her hair.
I edge closer. I can feel eyes on me—not hers, but other customers’, sizing me up, this woman in a bathrobe with a mushroomed umbrella wagging before her. I clear a channel through the crowd, through the noise, as I chug toward the counter. Then the chatter resumes, like water closing over me while I sink.
She’s a few feet away from me. One more step and I could reach out and touch her. Catch her hair in my fingers. Pull.
At that moment, she turns slightly and drops a hand into her pocket,