Dune wanted to care, but she found that she couldn’t process the scale of loss. Her own load was heavy enough. She felt guilt for her myopia, but had no capacity to pretend to be interested in anything. She was trying to gather her mother now; every memory, angle, fact and story Kama had left.

And now Mama Vivian was trying to starve herself.

Dune’s grief made her greedy for the silent woman’s time, quieted in herself as she kept company with the thin line of Mama Vivian’s closed mouth. Dune was holding on tight to her grandmother in all the ways she could. Offering unwanted sustenance. Speaking small jokes that could not be heard. Her entire life now was one continuous act of selfish care, but she felt justified. The old woman was now the last of her family.

2. Original quote from Jimmy Boggs, Detroit labor organizer and phil­osopher.

chapter four: Model D

Dune was restless. This wasn’t the same claustrophobic restlessness that had thrust her out of the house the day before. She’d gone out, fiercely stomping around the neighborhood until the late summer blossoms made her eyes water with repressed sneezes. She’d come home, dissatisfied.

Dune didn’t want to see all the bright life outside. She had a toe tapping desire to run, but the territory was inside, inside the halls of her memory. She wanted to see faces, moments, to gather up memory with more abandon. She wanted to find more of her mother.

She felt how deep her loner nature ran within her. She’d had girlfriends, homies, weed friends, work friends, but she hadn’t given herself over to the depth that resulted in best friendship, in the deep coevolution through friendship that Kama had with Elouise. Dune had mostly acquired people who wouldn’t bother her with questions, wouldn’t push too far past “fine” in a conversation.

Her coworkers at the Standard, and other restaurants before that, were alright. They’d offered teasing comradery as she ran herself skinny from table to kitchen and back. But these were not friends she even had contact information for. And the lights at the Standard had been off at night each time she’d gone out this week, which made her notice that other restaurants were dark—was everything closed?

Her weed friends had stopped by the first few weeks, left her spliffs and eighths with homemade cards. They hadn’t come again, hadn’t kept knocking. It is the highest level of care, to keep knocking. She hadn’t earned that from anyone yet … she hadn’t offered it.

Now Dune wanted some kind of contact, but couldn’t figure out what would touch her, satisfy her. Her life was too big for small talk, beyond petty drama. She had become heavy of heart, and hadn’t built the kind of friendships that could carry the weight.