Page 38 of Empty Net
"Does he know?" she asks.
"No."
"Do you?"
I look at the wall where Nolan's shoulder left a mark, the counter where his hands were, the door he closed softly behind him so the leaving would not sound cruel.
"I'm starting to."
My mother hums. Not the page-marking hmm. Softer.
"Then eat real food tomorrow," she says.
I blink. "That is your advice?"
"Tonight you will not solve this. Tomorrow you should eat something with vegetables."
"That is emotionally inadequate."
"Most good advice is."
I laugh because I cannot help it.
"Renew the lease?" I ask.
"No," she says.
"No?"
"Find a place with a better kitchen."
"Because of possibility?"
"Because of possibility," she says. "And dogs."
"I am not getting a dog."
"You say many things."
We hang up a few minutes later after she makes me promise to text when I have eaten breakfast. I stand in the dark kitchen with the phone in my hand and the apartment around me less organized than before.
Less organized is one way to describe it.
So is alive.
I go to the bedroom. Pick up the pillow from the floor. Smooth the comforter halfway and then stop. The room does not need to look untouched. It is not untouched.
Neither am I.
On the wall near the hallway, the mark is still there.
I leave it.
NOLAN
Trade-deadline rumors have a smell.
Not literally. Literally, the locker room smells like wet gear, soap, coffee, tape, and whatever Jonah put in the microwave that required three separate teammates to file verbal complaints. But the rumors get into the room anyway. They move under doors. They sit on shelves. They change the way people look at phones.
