Chapter 2: The Chair by the Window

Lin arrived with oranges because he did not trust flowers.

Flowers made a visit look ceremonial. Oranges could be peeled. They gave the hands a task and the room a small, bright smell.

Mira noticed the bag and almost smiled.

“Kitchen?” he asked.

“Chair by the window,” she said.

He nodded as if the seating plan mattered. It did.

On the sofa they could slip too easily into habit: knees touching, apology softened by closeness, the body solving what the conversation had not. The chair by the window gave them distance without making either of them stand trial.

Lin sat first. Mira took the other chair, angled slightly away.

“I don’t want you to begin with sorry,” she said.

He opened his mouth, closed it, and placed the oranges on the floor between them.

“Okay.”

“I want you to tell me what you noticed.”

The rain had stopped, but water still moved along the glass in thin lines. Lin followed one line down with his eyes.

“I noticed you got very still,” he said. “I noticed I wanted that stillness to mean yes because stopping would mean I had missed something.”

Mira looked at him then.

It was not enough. It was also the first sentence that did not make her feel alone in the room.