Something else had happened in the last few weeks: she had lost Prem. She could no longer picture him growing older alongside her. Either she had reached the limits of her imagination, or she had crossed over some threshold into adulthood and left him behind. Whatever the reason, losing him again was a rekindled pain that bore fresh guilt.

* * *

After a few weeks of looking through online ads and biking to interviews, Karina found a part-time job at Natural Foods Market, a store about two miles from campus that sold organic produce, whole-grain foods, and other natural products. It was a quarter of the size of a typical grocery store, and the produce department, where Karina worked two evenings a week and Sundays, was the star. During her shifts, it was Karina’s responsibility to ensure her section was stocked with fresh and appealing produce. She encouraged customers to smell and touch the fruit and offered free samples. It was one of her favorite parts of the job, to pull out a small knife, like the one she’d once given Prem, from her apron pocket and slice a perfectly ripe pear or a fresh, tangy apple. The customer was unfailingly pleased by the gesture, and usually impressed enough with the flavor to make a purchase.

This was the first time that Karina had done any kind of work that engaged her body more than her mind, and she found some relief in it. Time passed quickly at work and left her with little energy for anything but her studies. She began to feel like a visitor on campus, going there only to attend classes. She eschewed the library, campus eateries, anywhere she might run into James, Yoga Girl, Henry or even Claire, who had texted her a few times to invite her out again. Once in a while, she met up with Stephanie to study, but with few other friends left, Karina no longer socialized and the penance of this felt appropriate. She cycled between her classes, her job and her apartment, where she continued to sleep on the couch, still unable to return to her bed.

Karina had originally sought the job to stay busy, but the money turned out to be an additional boon, enabling her to fund her own living expenses and avoid calling her father. She used her employee discount to stretch her two-hundred-dollar weekly paycheck to buy groceries and was learning a lot about food preparation at NatMark, like how to roast marked-down overripe tomatoes and blend them into a rich paste for sauces and soups.

One day in the break room, some other team members were trying to convince her to join their Sunday night potluck. Karina felt warm in their camaraderie, so when her phone rang and it was Dad, she answered impulsively. “Hi, Dad.” It had been several weeks since they’d spoken live, only exchanging text messages during that time.

“Honey! Hi! I was beginning to wonder if you’d been swallowed up by the library.”