Neighborhood Watch: Eat Something

I write Dear Nora and dislike it immediately.

It looks like the beginning of an apology. Or a request for a reference. I turn the sheet over.

You look thinner.

Better.

She'll put a hand to her collarbone when she reads that. Maybe not immediately. Nora likes to finish a thing before admitting it's affected her. But she'll touch it eventually. Check the bone beneath her skin as though I might have put it there.

I rest the pen against the page.

She's going to know who this is from.

Good.

* * *

I could begin with an explanation.

There must be one she'd accept. Something about my father. Something about how hard it is to grow up around a man like that. She would understand hard. She made a business out of listening to women describe it while she improved their roots.

She'd tilt her head. Lower her voice. Tell me I should have come to her.

I can hear it so clearly I nearly answer.

I did come to her. Every working day. I stood beside her while she decided who was being unreasonable and which woman needed to stop letting a man make her life smaller. I folded the towels. Made the coffee. Learned when she wanted agreement and when she wanted to appear open to another opinion.

Most days, agreement was safer.

I write a sentence about the towels. Read it back.

It sounds like I'm upset about the laundry.

I cross it out.

The room is quiet. I can hear the pen scratching, which makes the whole exercise feel more intimate than I'd intended. My handwriting. My hand making each letter. Something she can turn over and hold up to the light.

She'll look for more on the back. Nora always thinks there's a part she hasn't been shown.

This time, she'll be right.

I begin again.

* * *

The coffee was the easiest part of that job.

Set it down close enough that she had to acknowledge it. Ask a question. Wait.

Sometimes she'd tell me she didn't want to talk. Then she'd talk anyway, because I'd stayed there, because I already knew the first half, because starting over with someone new required more energy than she had.

After the neighborhood chat turned on her, I asked whether we were going out of business.

She hadn't expected that. I could see her stop being upset long enough to consider whether I should be upset too.

For a moment, I was another person she might be letting down.

Useful, having a job.

I told her I knew who she was. I worked with her all day. Of course I believed her.

She wanted to believe me back. You could feel how badly she needed someone to make it easy.

I don't put that in the letter.

She'll remember the coffee. Let her do the rest.

I look at what I've written. Too much about me. Too much about how long I stood there, how much I heard, how little she noticed.

It makes me sound like I wanted a promotion.

I wanted considerably more than the privilege of ordering shampoo.

I get a clean sheet.

* * *

For a while, I consider telling her something about my father that she doesn't know.

Nothing comes to mind that she'd thank me for.

He's dead. She knows the most important thing about him now. Everyone does. It's remarkable how quickly a man becomes a collection of things other people are allowed to say.

I can picture his face if he saw me sitting here.

He'd have an opinion about the paper. About wasting time. About Nora, certainly. He could make her name sound like a personal inconvenience without ever considering that she'd had quite enough of him too.

I didn't want to be the person who killed my father.

I wasn't.

The distinction has not made him less dead.

I press harder with the pen. The point leaves a little hollow in the sheet underneath.

Elle has plenty of time now to think about what she wanted from him. Nora has her salon. My father has stopped creating problems faster than anyone can manage them.

It would be easy to call that an ending.

Nora probably does. On good mornings. When the door opens and it's only a client, when her dog comes to her, when she goes a few minutes without checking behind herself.

I picture her having one of those mornings.

Then I look at the first line again.

You look thinner.

She won't have to wonder whether I still think about her.

* * *

The finished version is much better.

I mention what she called delegation. The towels. The coffee. All those little requests that made her feel comfortable having me close.

I don't ask whether she misses me. I don't ask if she's hired someone. I certainly don't ask what she tells that person about the girl who used to stand behind her.

Those would give her questions she could choose not to answer.

I tell her what I learned instead.

I keep the part about her weight. She'll resent that I noticed. She'll resent it more if no one else has said anything.

Then I read the whole page aloud, quietly.

It sounds angry in places.

I am allowed that. But I don't want her putting it away as soon as she understands I'm angry. Nora has survived plenty of people being unpleasant. She can close a drawer on unpleasant.

I need something she'll hear later. While she's busy. While she's trying to work.

I add the last lines.

Still, you should eat something.

Being sharp requires fuel.

I read them twice.

She never used to mind being told that when there was a cup of coffee beside it.

The envelope is ivory, thick enough to feel deliberate. I fold the page carefully and slide it inside. Her name goes on the front in small letters. I don't add a return address.

Before I seal it, I take the page out once more.

No date. No signature. Just the words, arranged exactly how I want her to hear them.

I imagine her reaching the bottom and turning it over.

Looking for my name.

Then saying it anyway.

Maybe I’ll pay her a visit. Let her say my name to my face.

For old times’ sake.