Tate and his dad had been in Whittier only a few weeks, and I was curious about the scabby-kneed boy with long black hair who never spoke. That night in the lobby, after the bear was gone and Dad had slung me over his shoulder to take me back to bed, I saw Tate, curled into a tiny ball outside the laundry room, asleep. I’d tapped Dad on the shoulder and pointed. He’d made a noise in his throat, walked down the hall, and without putting me down, picked Tate up in his other arm. I remember thinking my dad was stronger than any other dad, stronger even than that bear. Tate’s eyes had fluttered open, and with our heads hanging over Dad’s shoulders, we stared at each other across his broad back. I smiled; he didn’t smile back, but our eyes stayed locked all the way up to his floor. When we got to his apartment, I was sleepy, trying to keep my lids from sticking together, and when Tate slid off Dad’s shoulder, I let them close all the way. Dad’s voice vibrated softly against his collarbone. Found him in the lobby. A woman responded, her tone low but brittle: You were supposed to be in bed, Tate. Later I learned she wasn’t his mom, just the first in a string of women his father rotated through.

It was later discovered that the bear had found his way in through a lobby door that someone had left propped open, and what followed were signs posted on every exterior door and papering the insides of the elevators, warning all residents to CLOSE THE DOOR TO KEEP WILDLIFE OUTSIDE.

“Claire?” Sefina’s voice, soft and calm but laced with something else. Concern?

I doodle across the page while I wait for the burning in my cheeks to fade. I’ve forgotten something. I don’t know what. Could be a question someone asked me, or maybe I’d been talking and stopped midsentence, but all I know is that I do not want to meet their eyes. I can already sense their pity; it slides across the table like a gelatinous glob, and when it touches me, I am reminded that this is all a charade, an act that they put on to help me feel like the normal twenty, no—I check my notes—thirty-six-year-old woman I am not. I love them for it, but the reality is that I am anything but normal, anything but the Claire I used to be. I take a deep breath and lift my eyes because self-pity is a luxury I don’t rest in for more than a second.

I give Ruth a smile with a confidence that I feel only in the lift of my shoulders. “Let me guess. Another Groundhog Day moment?” I say lightly.

Ruth laughs, seems relieved. “What a great movie.”