“I should have called you when I came back east. I’m going to come up and see you, okay, I’m going to come up and see you the moment I get a break here, I’ll get like, a week off and I’ll come up. I was just so ashamed about leaving Madison and disappointing you, and the fight we had then, and everything. I was just so ashamed. I’m so sorry. It was all just too much, it was too much. But I’m back, Mom. I’m back.”

“Honey, the things I said, I think about it every day. I didn’t mean them. I love you and your life is your life, and you can come up anytime.” Even over the phone it is clear she is shaking with emotion. He can see her perfectly, sitting in her reading chair and tearing up, probably in her old ratty robe and pajamas, the TV on mute, the small terrier a half-moon of fur poking up from the dog bed.

Even long after the conversation is finished Kierk is still seeing her, imagining her rinsing her cracked feet in the sink before going to bed as she always had, all the protections built up around his heart breaking and washing away.

The sounds of New York City at night boom in ambulance wails that seem purposeful attempts to demonstrate the Doppler effect, which mix with the sounds of conversations outside her window, and Carmen is listening to it all while lying on her bed, a book splayed in front of her, as, unknown to her, the phone in her discarded pair of jeans is buzzing because Kierk is calling her.

She has spent a lot of time contemplating Atif in the background of her day. Reading the email that had come from Atif’s mother had caused her to feel like her chest was collapsing into itself, and she had put a hand over her mouth and sobbed. She had written and deleted and rewritten again and deleted again. Nothing could answer the question.