Five

He will marvel at how extraordinary ordinary people are. So loyal to life that they demand living from everyone. Even him.

The businessman, admittedly, does not do well with her demographic, as he is only interested in women who are fuckable, so he has not noticed her this morning. And this is just as well because the old woman, Mrs. Worth, does not want to be noticed. And she certainly doesn’t want to be fucked. Not this morning.

Children are the strongest antidote to grief, not because of their unconditional love or their joy or because they take pain away, nothing like that, nothing like an inspirational quote embroidered on a pillow for your sofa. Children are the antidote because of their unrelenting needs, their continuous, voracious, narcissistic, selfish insistence on living, their unceasing demands that those needs, no matter how trivial, be met immediately and urgently.

But it isn’t until we hear the fear of life ending, the fear of seeing it end in front of us, that we know the difference. The guttural cry or wailing scream, the shrill call of succumbing to disaster, the whispered prayer of a last breath—the sounds of fear are worse, sometimes, than the sights.

Many truths can be true. Many loves can be loved.

But Emma knows that their condescension is wrapped in envy that they can never speak aloud for the sake of self-preservation. They must convince themselves that they have made the right choices by comparing them to her choices, which, deep down, they know are the better choices, the choices they wish they’d made. The choices they would have made if they weren’t so scared of everything, if they were brave enough not to believe what they were taught about being women. If they really believed they were the equals of men.

And she doesn’t mind being the last one standing, even at thirty-seven, because she doesn’t feel things the way other people do. And she loves this about herself. The freedom that comes with not feeling. Some have described Emma as a sociopath or a narcissist. But she prefers to think of herself as a winner.

wonders why rich people can’t just do cocaine at dinner parties like they used to, instead of shaming one another into elitist exercise trends.

They were grown up enough to know where they were headed but still young enough to hold the promise of their future in the pocket of his suit jacket where he was carrying her lipstick for her because it wouldn’t fit in the tiny clutch that matched her bridesmaid’s dress.

the accountant examines his Lycra reflection in the train door windows and wonders why rich people can’t just do cocaine at dinner parties like they used to, instead of shaming one another into elitist exercise trends.

She pretends to herself it is instant anger her mother provokes, and she ignores the hurt beneath the fury, the pain only a mother can inflict that never goes away.

She never was The One and she never got The One.

and the small tufts of hair in his ears, which suggest a dying marriage because his wife has not noticed as she no longer sees him when she looks at him and/or she does not have the energy to raise the topic of ear hair in a way that will not drive the final nail into the coffin of their union.

the middle of the platform stand two middle-class, middle-aged, middle-management commuters who are slightly hungover from last night’s midweek, midpriced, midrange red wine.

He is ruggedly handsome, his male-pattern baldness a credit to his virility, as though his hair simply could not survive his potent masculinity and so surrendered, defeated, leaving his scalp as a shining emblem of his vigor.

Useless, she thinks. She looks at Gideon, swinging his legs, shouting something incoherent, and thinks, Probably hyperactive or transgender or allergic to nuts like all of them these days.

You are, and always will be, a little bit in love with him, but you tell your friends that you would never date him because he’s soooo amazing but he has capital I Issues. Although, if you were honest with yourself, you know the reason you are not dating him is that he has never shown the least bit of interest in you. Not in that way. Oh—you think longingly, in secret—but if he did, you could definitely be the one to save him. Definitely.

His green-eyed mother said the green eye was from her Colombian father and the brown eye from her Jamaican mother, and though they had both passed, they loved him so much they came back to see the world with their grandson.

He relies on his looks, his dress, his racially ambiguous features, as a kind of sleight of hand, a misdirection. There is so much to look at when one meets Sonny—his face, his clothes, his eyes, his way of being—that people often don’t actually see him. And he knows it, and this is how he prefers it.

years ago, and he should have made more progress by now. But a few things got in the way. They always do.

She [Emma] pretends to herself it is instant anger her mother provokes, and she ignores the hurt beneath the fury, the pain only a mother can inflict that never goes away.