Beside us, on one of the armchairs, sat Nora Delgado; a heavy-set, soft-spoken woman in her mid-forties with deep acne scars. She was the mother of Kyle’s friend Julian, and I suppose the reason why Kyle and I had ended up in that living room. I leaned over and introduced myself, and we exchanged a few polite words. I didn’t mention that I used to teach her son. And I certainly didn’t mention that though this was our first time meeting, it wasn’t the first time that I had thought about her. Julian once wrote a short story for my class, about a Guatemalan woman who crossed the Mexican American border with her infant son, and began life as an undocumented migrant, living out of a motel in Texas. The woman worked at the motel as a cleaner, in exchange for accommodation, and had to fend off the sexual advances of the motel owner. When I asked Julian about the story, he denied it was autobiographical. And yet, there was something about the mother in the story that felt so specific and vivid, I couldn’t help but feel she contained some residue of truth. Either way, I gave him full marks, despite the story being about half of the requested word count.

Standing next to us was a young woman with an easy smile named Seema, who, I overheard, was a medical resident at the General. She had a cherubic face, a boyish haircut, a neck tattoo, and a gold nose stud. I admired the casual transgression of her style, in a suburb where black skinny jeans stood out. As she spoke, Seema hid her hands inside the sleeves of her roomy flannel shirt, and sometimes tucked her mouth behind her shirt collar while listening; not in a shy way, but like a cat playing with an empty bag, full of excess, restless energy. She was the youngest in the room, after Kyle, and the two of them had naturally drifted into conversation with one another. They seemed to be comparing notes on the hum, sharing timelines and theories. I wanted to join them, but I got the sense that Kyle needed some space.