Darius, don't tell her that. Her head's already the right size. He put the phone down and sat in the quiet of his living room and let himself feel without immediately managing it. The fact that two people had confirmed they were together within the same evening through completely separate channels and the world had not ended and in fact the world had texted back warmly and asked follow-up questions. He thought about Renee.
He thought, "I'm okay. We're okay. I'm still here." The way he sometimes spoke to her in his head, not from grief anymore, but from the simple continuity of having loved someone and always carrying them. He thought she would have liked Clare, not because they were similar, because they were similarly unbothered by the things that required bothering.
He fell asleep on the couch. First time in months he'd done that. Fallen asleep somewhere other than his bed, the way you do when your nervous system has finally decided the house is safe. He woke up at 2:00 a.m. With a stiff neck and a feeling of general peace and went to bed.
The next twist came not from outside but from inside. And it arrived on a Thursday evening in the form of a phone call from Renee's mother. Diane Whitaker Darius had kept her last name after Renee passed because she'd asked him to. Because she said it was the only way she knew how to stay connected to what her daughter had left behind. Called at 7:45 while Darius was helping Maya with her ecosystem poster.
He saw the name on the screen and felt the old reflex and the tightening. The preparation, the gathering of himself into the careful version. He answered on the third ring, Diane, Darius. Her voice was the same as always warm in the specific way of a woman who had experienced the worst thing a parent can experience and had chosen to keep being warm anyway, which was a kind of courage he had immense respect for. How are you, baby?
Good, good. Maya's right here. She's been asking about Thanksgiving. I know. I talked to her yesterday.
She told me about her science project. A pause, the kind that means when deciding how to approach what they actually called about. She also told me about Clare. There it was. Darius sat back in his chair.
He glanced at Maya who was very carefully cutting out leaf shapes from green construction paper and absolutely listening to every word. "Let me move to the other room," he said. "You don't have to. Give me one second." He walked to the hallway, leaned against the wall.
"Okay, she didn't say much," Diane said quickly. "Just that she's your neighbor and she's been coming around and that she has good curtains. Of course, she mentioned the curtains." Darius. Dian's voice shifted, still warm, but with the weight of a woman who had earned the right to say what she was about to say.
"I'm not calling to interfere. You know, I'm not that person. I know. I just I needed to hear you tell me yourself that you're doing okay, that this is good. He thought about how to answer that.