Page 108 of What It's Like in Words
“Fuck! I was making tea.” Ruth slaps her forehead and goes to the kitchen. The stove clicks on. “You know, when I tell people that I lived in Kenya, they always assume I’m Kenyan. I mean, I was there for four years, the same as you. It’s all very ‘Africa is a country,’ you know?”
I turn to the kitchen. “Where do you think of as home, Roo?”
“I don’t know. But I’ve lived in London longer than anywhere else,” she says, opening the fridge and sniffing the milk. “I’m really proud of you, Enola.”
“Because the milk’s in date?”
“Yes,” she says with a grin.
Ruth gets the tea bags from the cupboard and puts them in the mugs. I turn to the bookshelf where all the books are in the right place.
“Roo, do you think that was why the relationship with him didn’t work? Because I kept him at a distance?”
“That’s ridiculous. He knew how much you loved him.”
“But did he knowme?”
“Did he try to?”
“Maybe not. But I don’t think that I really wanted him to. He was never going to push, and so it was safe. I never even told him whatreally happened with Dad. If he had lied about something like that, I would have accused him of not letting me in.”
The kettle begins to whistle.
“Hedidn’tlet you in.”
“But you know what I mean.”
Ruth scoops my tea bag out—
“Enola. I think you gave it everything. And I think you didn’t give him that information about your dad because you knew, on some level, that it wasn’t safe to.”
—and presses hers on the side of the mug.
“I’m glad that I met him, though, Roo. Maybe these two years have been necessary. Like how a summer storm clears the air?”
But as I say it, I know that’s the wrong metaphor; it’s more accurate to say that something was disturbed, like how a change in weather can reveal a body.
“Save that for the next book,” Ruth says, smiling.
I feel love thick as honey for her, my best friend, my partner, my family. She pours the milk with her tea bag still in the mug. She won’t remove it until there is a residue like skin on custard.
“Roo, you told me yesterday that what I felt wasn’t love.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, cringing visibly at hearing her words back. “I shouldn’t have said that. It’s not for me to say what you feel.”
“No, you were right. But I don’t think that love is one thing. We pretend that the word means the same thing for everyone, but it doesn’t. I’ve been pushing you away and I’m so sorry. I promise I won’t do it again. Because the way I love you is every definition, every dictionary, every translation.”
We look at each other for a moment until we are interrupted by my phone in the bedroom.
“Go and get that. I’ll put the oven on for the croissants.”
IN THE BEDROOM,Iget to my phone just as it stops ringing. There is a missed call from Diana. My heart instinctively races, the way it has every time I’ve seen Diana’s name on my phone over the pastfew months and wondered if that email would be the one to change my life. But then my heart calms. I know why she is calling. This will be the final word, theWe’ll have better luck with book two.It’s strange, but it doesn’t feel like a failure. Writing my book was the best thing to come from the past two years, the thing that I will remember long afterhisname has faded from my lips. It’s okay if no one wants to publish this book. I’m only thirty. I will write another one.
My phone vibrates. Diana has left a voicemail.
I look at the notification, appreciating how different I feel, and then press play. First, the sounds of the office, then my name, and then Diana gives the news. Everything slows and then accelerates until I am back in the kitchen, where Ruth is eating Virinder’s peanut butter with a spoon.
“Can I eat this?” she says, mouth full. Then: “Enola, what is it?”
