But Gemma learned long ago that dissociation did not come without silver linings, that she is able to pull back her body’s automatic overrides, to manually guide her physical being forward to wherever it needs to be, like a lone man rising from a snowbank in nighttime winter cold. She stands and slugs the whole beer in two series of voracious gulps. “Nah, I gotta go.”

“Damn, you can suck, eh?” He snickers to himself.

Gemma winks and thinks, This fuckin’ guy. She tamps down a burp and shrugs on her coat. Her head and her stomach are exploding. Can she reach the doorknob and turn it? Yes, yes, she can. None of this matters. She is walking out the door to make a good meal for a beautiful girl, who’s real, who’s here, who’s no memory or mirage, who Gemma likes so, so much, and they will have one more night together and she will cherish and delight in it, and then she will leave. In this, there is dignity. Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. She opens the door and looks back at the guy, and this time she flashes a genuine smile. “See ya around.”

Gemma pounds up the steps aaaaaand pukes on the shale pretty much immediately. Whatever! Pouring beer on a T1 haze—she had it coming, and she almost immediately feels better. The fresh air feels good on her cheeks. She takes mints out of her bag and walks on—boom—good as new. She crosses the tracks and strolls down Stephen Street. In front of the Chicken Chef, an old man tips his cap (John Deere, natch).

She stops at the LC for a handle of vodka, and then heads over to the IGA—bah, right, it’s a Giant Tiger now.

Flour, butter, heavy cream. Cottage cheese, kernel corn, and—holy shit, by some heavenly fuckin’ miracle there is farmer sausage at the fucking Giant Tiger! Gemma remarks on this to the cashier, an old woman with an old-school accent who says, “Oh yah, you’re lucky now. We dohn’t get the Foamavorscht in that much.” Then a pale blond teenage boy wearing no uniform asks the woman something in Plautdietsch. The woman turns to Gemma. “Would you like help carrying this to your car?”

Gemma’s eyes have filled with tears at these sounds. She is embarrassed. But she’s embarrassed with the fullest of hearts. She only wishes she had a way to respond. She wishes she had a way to communicate to the woman what she understands, but all she can do is shake her head no. The woman turns back to the boy, as if he has not also been watching Gemma. “Nee, Alvino,” she says quietly. “Dank.”

On the way out, Gemma finds it in her to whisper, “Thank you” to the boy as she moves past, and when she does this, the boy’s eyes grow wide.