I didn’t know what she was talking about to be honest, not really. The big old archaic house, the beach, the town, everything seemed to me like it had been this way forever. I had managed to not return to my own home for three years at that point, since I’d moved to the city. I didn’t really know what it meant to go back. It was easier not to, financially of course, but also just easier to keep moving forward, to forget the loons, the pines, the boys, my father. People weren’t meant to exist in so many spaces. We were supposed to immigrate to a new country and never return, to write home only occasionally, hoping the letter somehow survived the distance, and then lose touch, as everyone had always done until very recently. We were supposed to be allowed the capacity to start over, to be swallowed up in a new place, to grow up, to change.

“I cut bangs,” she said, her eyes watering, spilling over. “Because I used to wear my hair like this in high school. Something ridiculous is happening to me.”

I tried to remember the photo in my notebook, Lonnie next to the falling white sheet. Did she have bangs there? How had I not noticed?

I leaned my head over onto her shoulder, my ear pressed up on her bare skin. I thought about her on the beach, feeling her shoulder with her cheek. She was warm, feverish; she was giving off so much heat. I had the urge to lick the tears from her face.

“I like the bangs,” I told her quietly, a stupid thing to say. I had bangs myself, of course I liked them. Though my skin hadn’t darkened much, my hair had lightened in the sun over the past two weeks. My body right next to hers, so similar in size, our hair in the same style now, I imagined we were two halves of a ripe fruit—one half in light and one in shadow.

It was starting to rain. I could hear the drops on the window above us and shrieks coming from downstairs.

“My paper boats,” Lonnie said, still crying.

I put my hand on her waist, rested it there for a moment, and then started gently rubbing her stomach, moving my palm back and forth. My heart pounded from the close contact. I wasn’t really trying to make her feel better; I didn’t know how to do that. She nuzzled her face into my neck, the way I was used to her son doing. Her vulnerability seemed a blessing. I could’ve kissed her then, just because she was crying.

“We need to get you a drink,” I said instead. “I think you could really use a drink.”

She nodded. “Okay, but just stay here for a minute. I can’t face everybody like this.”

“Okay, of course.”