by Lisa Unger
“Anisa and Parker?”
She frowns. Something in my tone, maybe.
“Yeah,” she says. She pushes up her glasses. “Maybe we shouldn’t be talking about this, Will. Right? Let’s talk about you. Your book.”
“It’s okay,” I say, leaning in. “I’ve done a lot of work on myself. I get that I made mistakes—big ones. She’s moved on, and so have I. I’m . . . glad she’s happy.”
“That’s great.” She seems relieved, offering a sweet smile and reaching for my hand again. Then she pulls her hand back, checks her phone.
“It just seems a little strange, doesn’t it?” I venture. “You guys were so close, more like sisters. Living the simple life doesn’t mean you shed your friends, does it?”
“I wouldn’t think so,” Emily says. “But she did this big post about clutter clearing, leaving behind old, dead relationships that hold you back. She said something about how even people you love can hold on to outdated versions of you, causing you to cling to that part of yourself.”
I offer her a laugh. “Don’t worry. I’m sure she was just talking about me.”
But Emily doesn’t laugh with me. “Some of us were kind of hurt by that. Especially since none of us have spoken to her.”
“None of you?” I ask.
She shakes her head, now looking like she might be tearing up a little. “Like, not for almost a year. Since, you know, all that happened.”
I clear my throat. It’s awkward to have survived a suicide attempt; people become very careful—about what they say, how they refer to the event. I wear long sleeves, of course. The scars are quite pronounced still, marks of my pain, my instability, which will not fade quickly.
“Well, what about this Parker guy?” Breathe. Keep it light. “What did you think of him?”
“I never met him in person. Brianna met him once at a bar. She said that Anisa didn’t seem that into Parker. And then, a few weeks later . . .”
Was it him? Was this Parker the one who’d pulled her back from me as I lay dying? That darkness in me, it wants to cling, to yank her out of the shadows. More than anything, I told Dr. Black, it wants to hold on tight.
“It happens like that sometimes, doesn’t it?” I say, trying to sound carefree and in the know about these things. “When it’s right, it’s right?”
“I guess,” she says quietly. “But I miss her.”
You have no idea what it means to miss her, I nearly snap. But I bite it back. She sips at her tea. I keep breathing.
“You know, Will, I probably shouldn’t say this. But I miss you. The way it was then, before it got—bad.”
The flash of anger passes.
“Me too,” I say. I mean it.
I glance down at the wood grain in the table between us, then up at a framed picture hanging on the wall behind her, a grainy photo of a crow on a branch. “I really fucked everything up.”
Because Anisa and I—we were happy. Not just Instagram happy.
We were Sunday-walks-to-the-market, inside-jokes, turkey-chili-Tuesday, soul-baring happy. We were fight-and-make-up, rub-each-other’s-feet-while-we-watch-TV, go-out-at-ten-to-buy-her-tampons-without-a-second-thought happy. We were the real deal. True love.
Emily reaches across the table again for my hand. “We all make mistakes coming from our place of pain. When we know better, we do better.”
I let the words hover a moment.
Thanks, Oprah, I don’t say.
She means well—I know she does. But I’m full up with shrink speak. Both of us stay quiet, the café noise around us seeming to grow louder, the energy between us tensing a bit.
“So where is it? The tiny house,” I ask.
It’s misplayed, and Emily draws away, that worried frown that Anisa used to love crinkling her brow. Her Piglet frown, Anisa used to call it. Sweetly worried. Kind but wary. Is he one of the Fiercer Animals? Anisa used to tease Emily, mimicking Piglet from Winnie-the-Pooh. Any teasing between the two of them, though, was from a place of purest love. A loving, laughing acceptance of each other’s flaws.
“Will,” she says, “I don’t know where the house is. But even if I did, I don’t think I could tell you.”
I lift both palms, pull my face into a mask of patient innocence.
“I get that, really. I was just going to suggest that you go find her. Go talk to her. She can’t be far, right?”
I pull out my own phone and open Instagram. “Those are northern trees, right? Autumn colors?” I look out the window to our own urban autumn afternoon, leaves amber, sienna, scarlet.
She nods her assent but still looks uncomfortable. She gazes toward the door, starts packing up her things.
“Look,” I say, “I still care about her. Of course I do. It just all seems a little weird to me. That she meets some guy that no one else really knows. She just takes off, doesn’t even say goodbye. No one has heard her actual voice or seen her in person for nearly a year.”
I realize that I’m leaning across the table, talking a little too fast, too loud. I catch myself, breathe, pull back. I can tell she’s hearing me even though she looks uneasy.
“What about her mother?” I say.
Emily blows out a breath. “That woman,” she says. “She’s useless at the best of times.”
That’s true. Anisa’s mother was the biggest part of her problems. A drunk. Alternately neglectful, then clingy. She actually came on to me the night Anisa introduced us. We laughed about it, because what else could you do with that? Anisa’s father died when she was a toddler. This shitty childhood was why Anisa was empty inside, always looking to be filled—by her work, by her relationships. It also made her a victim to shitty men—like me. And probably this guy Parker.
“Or Brendan?” I toss it out there, earning another eye roll.
“Anisa hasn’t talked to her brother in, like, five years. The last I heard, he was in jail. Cooking meth or something totally fucked like that.”
Yeah, her family is crap.
To be honest, that’s why I’m worried. She has no mooring. No place where she’s safe. It could have been me. I could have been that port in the storm of her life. We could have built a foundation where she was loved and cared for, where we could both grow. That was what I wanted. I just blew it, massively. Worse than the anger is the regret. I really hope I didn’t hurt her that night I wound up in jail. I guess I could ask Emily. But a big part of me doesn’t want to know if I’m the kind of man who could put his hands on a woman he loves in anger. Dr. Black and I talk about this too. Have you ever hurt anyone before, Will? Dr. Black wanted to know. Have you ever hit a woman?
No, I told him, never. And that’s the truth.
I’m sorry, Anisa.
“Neither of them has seen her, talked to her?” I say. The silence between us has grown long.
“I don’t know, Will,” Emily says. When the waitress brings my cappuccino, she asks for the bill.
We sit a moment. The coffee is too hot to sip. I blow at the foam.
“It just all seems a little strange to me,” I say, trying to catch her eyes. “Something’s not right.”
Emily shrugs, stares at her phone. “It looks pretty right to me. Her face—she’s glowing. Read her words; she sounds grounded and wise. She looks healthy and strong.”
She points the screen back in my direction. There’s her beautiful body, a lean, arching silhouette against the rising sun. Did Parker take that photo?
“In fact,” Emily says, wistful, “she might be better than she ever has been.”
The room seems dingy suddenly, overcrowded. There’s a garish smear of Emily’s lipstick on the pale mug. The woman behind me is coughing fitfully. The table between us wobbles.
This is my point. The world. The real world is fraught with imperfections. It’s messy and complicated, often uncomfortable, awkward, painful, dull. It’s not curated and filtered for consumption.
“But that’s social media,” I say. “It’s not . . . true.”
> “Isn’t it?”
“No.” Again, too emphatic, a little too loud.
Emily’s eyes widen, just for a millisecond. Then she stows her phone, clutches the bag to her middle. She dips her head and shifts. I think she’s going to scurry out without another word. You can be frighteningly intense, Will. Anisa used to say this all the time. Scale it back.
“I’m sorry,” I say, to soften the awkward tension.
“What’s true,” she says after a breath, “is that she left us.”
It’s almost a whisper, like she’s trying not to cry.
“Not just you, Will, but all of us, and this life we were living together. And that sucks.”
The woman behind me. She will not stop coughing.
Emily goes on over the din. “But if she wanted us to be a part of whatever new version of herself she’s creating, she’d call or visit or invite us to her goddamn tiny house in the woods.”
Now it is Emily’s turn to take a moment to calm herself. I will say this about Anisa. The people who love her, really love her. They care. They want her in their lives. I wonder if she knows this.
“We may not like it,” she continues. “It may hurt. But that doesn’t make it less true.”
I nod, trying to give the impression that I’m not just waiting for my turn to talk.
“But that’s my point,” I say, jumping in when she’s done. “I can see why she’d ghost me. I screwed up. I was jealous, possessive, a total dick. I drove her away. Then I basically stalked her, okay? I . . . menaced her. She was so afraid of me that she called the police and took out a restraining order. I lost it, tried to kill myself. She was right to move on from me.”
I’m reaching for Emily, but she’s pulling away. I often feel like this—reaching, trying to make my point, my case, while others draw back.
“But what if—stay with me—she didn’t leave her life, all her friends, by her own choice?”
Emily gives me a confused, uncomfortable squint, looks toward the door again.
“I mean—what if something’s wrong? Like—really wrong.”
When our eyes meet again, there’s naked pity there. Emily has seen me at my worst. I wondered why she would agree to meet me. Why she’s helping me with my career. She knows how bad it got with Anisa, that my life is in shambles. I see now that she just feels sorry for me. She’s the rare nice person in the world who wants to help someone who is clearly struggling.
“Will, she’s finally happy. Maybe she’ll reach out to us again when she feels more, I don’t know, solid in her new life.”
I issue a laugh that sounds more bitter than I intended. “Not to me, I’m guessing.”
She stands, pulls a twenty from her pocket, and puts it on the table for the check that hasn’t come. I should offer to pay. After all, I invited her. But the truth is, I can’t afford it. Ashamed, I let her leave the wrinkled bill and lift my cup in thanks.
“Will? Just—” She shakes her head. “Just let her be.”
She leaves, and I’m alone. The normal state of things. Pity party.
Under the menu, I spy the black corner of a Moleskine. I grab it and run out onto the street after her. But she’s nowhere to be seen.
I text her.
She doesn’t answer.
She’ll probably ghost me now too. When I open the notebook, its pages are filled with her notes and poetry. The voyeur in me experiences a dark thrill. What would I learn about sweet Emily in these pages? Not that I’d rifle through her private thoughts. I snap it closed quickly, tuck it under my arm.
I walk home, not even wanting to spend money on the subway. It’s a hike, nearly ninety blocks. But it’s okay; I like to ramble through the city, watch the neighborhoods change, see the haves and have-nots mingle, hear buses hiss, listen to horns bleating, observe the endless construction of ever-taller gleaming towers for the megarich, while steam rises from manholes, nuts roast in sugar, and wood burns in someone’s fireplace, putting the scent of smoke in the air.
I live in my parents’ Upper East Side town house now. Nice, right? Three floors, working fireplaces, an outdoor space, original fixtures and wainscoting throughout. Shelves of rare books, art from all over the world. They’ve had this place since their thirties, inherited from my mother’s parents. It’s worth a fortune now, though it’s a bit run-down and in need of work here and there. The pipes clank; the lights flicker; the floors creak terribly. I think they should sell it, but they won’t hear of it.
Where in the world would we go?
Anywhere, I tell them, anywhere in the world.
But they’re lifers, Manhattanites to the core. They’ll carry us out of here feet first.
Anyway, they’re away on one of the trips they take—these kind of hiking, educational things. Basic accommodations, good food, but nothing fancy. They’re all about substance, my parents. I have no idea where they are, though they’ve told me multiple times, their itinerary buried in my email somewhere. I’ll have to check my mom’s Facebook page. Idaho? Something about bird migration. My father has made it clear that this—my living with them—should not be seen as a permanent solution. I don’t blame him. It’s been a year. I’m truly better, solid, on my feet. And I’m ready to be on my own too. No one wants to live with his parents, right?
I enter the foyer, close the door. The quiet of the place greets me. My mother usually has the television on or music playing. She can’t bear silence. My father is usually in his study, working or having a soft-voiced conversation with an author. He could have retired, but he still works as a freelance editor. He, too, has offered to help me get published—or to make the connections, anyway. But I want to do this myself. The help of a peer is one thing; getting your dad to make calls is quite another.
I’m confident that you’ll be on your way to having a situation when we return, Dad said. A situation? Who am I? Jane Eyre?
They’re not going to kick me out, though. That much I know. The room upstairs is mine and has always been my refuge, the place I return to when things go badly, as they so often seem to.
I look at the card Emily gave me—Paul Stafford of Writers Space—stuff it back in my pocket. That’s a good thing. I’ll focus on that. Write a query letter, send those very polished first three chapters, using Emily’s name. Maybe. Maybe this is my first step forward into a real life.
My sister, Claire, would have been a better adult child, I’m sure. She was my superior in every way. No one ever says so, but it’s quite obvious—she was the smart, beautiful, sweet one. There was so much promise. Whereas I was always the difficult one, the problem—colicky as a baby, bad grades through middle and high school, worse behavior, then a general failure to launch, multiple career “setbacks,” recently my very serious suicide attempt.
Again, my parents would never say so—perpetually singing my praises and overinflating my meager accomplishments, making excuses for my failings. The world is too much with him, I overheard my mother tell her friend on the phone. He’s creative, such a sensitive spirit. That girl. She just bled him dry.
Interesting turn of phrase.
Yes, Anisa just bled me dry.
Or was it I who bled her dry, bled us dry with my insecurity, my accusations?
Looking back, knowing that she loved you, that she was always faithful, what led you to doubt her? Dr. Black asked.
It always seemed true. There was always a real thing that sent me into a froth.
Once it was some text messages that seemed suggestive. Another time I was sure I saw her kiss a man in the dark hallway outside the bathrooms in a club. Once she said she was with Emily. But she hadn’t been. I still don’t know where she was that night. She was already pulling away from me then.
But even if it were true, the doctor said, do you recognize that you don’t, can’t, possess another person? Even if you were married, it’s not a crime for her to be unfaithful. It doesn’t give you the right to spy, snoop, follow, to violate her boundaries. Can we agree on that?
/>
I know that. I do.
But—how can you keep that jealousy from causing you to do things you know are wrong? How can you keep from clinging to things you don’t want to lose? When they seem to be slipping away?
Dr. Black suggests, of course, meditation and mindfulness exercises, deep breaths, a calm and respectful query, if necessary. Yes, that seems right.
I want to tell Anisa all of this. How it took me nearly throwing away my life to finally understand it. Maybe she can forgive me.
Not take me back. No. I know that.
I’m just looking for forgiveness, for closure.
You have to be okay with not getting that from her. You have to forgive yourself.
If ever there was a shrinky non-phrase. What the hell does that mean? Forgive myself. Of course I forgive myself. Isn’t it all too easy to do that?
My parents have another house too. Upstate, on twenty acres, deep in the woods. Another inherited property, this one from my father’s side. Grandpa’s old hunting cabin that they’ve built upon and modernized over the years. That’s where my sister died. They don’t go up there anymore. It sits empty, going to seed, as my father likes to say. I’m the only one who ever goes there—to check on things, meet with the handyman when there’s a problem. Sometimes I go there to write. Anisa and I visited a few times.
My mother thinks I should go up there permanently, do the fixing up that needs doing instead of the handyman, take care of the property, get a job in town while I finish my novel and try to get it published. I think she wants me to exorcise its demons, make it a happy place again.
Anisa never liked it there. There’s a sadness there—in the walls, in the lake, in the trees, she said. It’s true. My sister drowned there in the lake behind the house. An accident.
Claire was older by three years, a beautiful sylph of a thing. In pictures, she looks ephemeral, as if she was never part of this world. I remember her always just out of my reach—with sunlight for hair and a galaxy for eyes.
