While I’m looking at Ye-Ye’s DM, my phone rings. I let it go to voicemail and then listen to the message. It’s Dr. Kerr. My heart sinks when I hear his voice. There’s no more space in my brain for my mum at the moment. I feel as though if I let too much of her in, I might have to push something fundamental—like my capacity for emotion, or for making memories, or understanding language—out. Dr. Kerr tells me that my mum has been bedbound, not socializing with the other residents at all, not speaking to any of the nurses, and they want me to pay for her to become one of the catered-for residents, so she can eat meals with the others, and then enjoy board games after. “We will wait until we hear from you, but we are concerned about her happiness and well-being at this point. And we think being more a part of the community here will help.” I lock my phone. I’m concerned about my own happiness and well-being, I want to say. My mum lied to me about sex, about so much, and this morning, Ben’s continued existence is proof of that. I want to tell them, She isn’t my responsibility anymore. She is yours.

I push my mum and Crimson Orchard out of my mind. I delete the voicemail, then look at #whatieatinaday on Instagram. I flop down onto the floor. I’m exhausted. I face the wall, so it’s just my hand, my phone, and the blank concrete I can see. I don’t want to see my studio and all the things in it. I don’t even want to see the painting I made that I was so happy with, or the puppet Yaga who is on the table, her body still and empty. Behind me, the next episode of Buffy begins, and I start scrolling through pictures of various meals along to the sound of Buffy talking.

Instagram what-I-eat-in-a-day posts are different from the YouTube equivalents. Most of the posts start with a picture of a white woman with an athletic, muscular body. They all feel like adverts for personal trainers. It gets boring quite quickly, so I search on YouTube instead, and find my way back to the Japanese girl I watched last time. I lose myself in my phone. Time becomes weird and immeasurable, as I watch days’ and weeks’ worth of meals being consumed in short videos; the sun rises and sets and rises and sets over and over again behind the various people I watch, and I begin to lose almost all sense of my surroundings. It’s like a high. I enjoy it. At the end of it, I find myself watching someone go through the steps for making rice and tuna pancakes, and memorizing them all carefully as though I’m going to make the pancakes myself; partway through, my phone dies.