That piece of gum. I watched her throw it away that morning, as she teased William with the blow dryer while getting ready. I stood in the bathroom doorway, feeling intrusive, though she was giggling with William like she was glad he was there, so I didn’t pick him up and take him elsewhere to play. She stood upright for just a moment, looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was puffed out in disarray from the blow dryer, stray wisps arching upward. She brought the gum between her front teeth with her tongue and then pinched it out of her mouth, flicking it into the little metal garbage pail under the pedestal sink.

“I can’t buy gum,” she said. “I chew all of it at once, all day long. My jaw hurts.”

I smiled.

There was nothing else in the trash can. There was just the gum, the little sticky lump that had been in her mouth that morning. I knew where the tape was, but that gum was the closest gluey substance, just a few steps away from the bookshelf. Putting it in my own mouth will make it soft and sticky again, I said to myself. It was the only logic I was willing to consider. These things are only strange when viewed objectively. And there was no one else home then.

I NEVER CONSIDERED TAKING ANYTHING OF ANY VALUE FROM her house, maybe because none of her actual objects seem to matter to her at all. Once she said, “You can borrow any of my books anytime,” so I started sneaking them away as quickly as I could read them. She had so many, she never noticed, even as they began to pile up on the floor of my bedroom, as my mind began to pile up with the same stories, the characters, the beautiful sentences she already knew. I felt if I could just read all her books I could absorb a large portion of her mind. I could catch up with her, best her even. I didn’t want her things, I wanted her life.

Even so, books and trinkets were not the only things I decided to steal.

When I imagined myself with Carlow, I pictured us at his parents’ apartment, the one I walked past when I took William to the playground.

In this fantasy, there’s fancy champagne in the fridge and we pop it open even though we shouldn’t. Even though it’s for some party that hasn’t happened yet. I sit on the counter, swigging comically from the big bottle and handing it off to him, laughing, and then I look at him and say, “Come here.”

A body between my legs. His slim hips between my thighs. The way a dress creeps up.