Page 197 - In Five Years

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Jill comes home with me. She lingers at the door, and I hear Bella: “Dannie?
Who is it?”
“It’s Mom,” Jill says.

I leave them be.
I go out. I walk. When my mom calls, I answer.
“Dannie,” she says. “How is she?”

And then, as soon as I hear her voice, I start to cry. I cry for my best friend,
who in an apartment above, is fighting for the right to breathe. I cry for my
mother, who knows this loss all too intimately. The wrong kind. The kind you

should never have to bear. I cry for a relationship I’ve lost, a marriage, a future
that will never be.
“Oh, darling,” she says. “Oh, I know.”

“David and I broke up,” I tell her.
“You did,” she says. She does not seem surprised. It is barely a question:

“What happened?”
“We never got married,” I tell her.
“No,” she says. “I suppose you didn’t.”
There is silence for a moment.

“Are you okay?”
“I’m not sure.”

“Well,” she says. “That’s better than some alternatives. Do you need help?”
It’s just a simple question, one she has asked me over and over again
throughout the course of my life. Do you need help with homework? Do you
need help with that car payment? Do you need help carrying that laundry basket

up the stairs?