Obviously. Testing if you were tired.
Me:
I am always tired.
Dani:
That's management.
Me:
Comforting.
Dani:
No one said it was.
I smile despite myself.
The front office has its own strange forms of care. Dani testing whether I am awake enough to request clips correctly. Davis putting coffee on my desk without comment after Tampa. Alderman saying, that part is still allowed to be true, and then pretending he had not given me permission to be human for three seconds.
None of them can tell me what to do about Nolan.
Good.
Maybe that is the point.
Maybe participation is not another word for action. Maybe sometimes participation is not turning your fear into pressure just because pressure feels more productive than waiting.
This thought is terrible.
I text my mother:
How does a person not manage everything?
She replies:
Badly at first.
Then:
Why do you think I married your father? I needed practice.
I laugh alone in my kitchen.
Then she sends:
Do not make your fear his assignment.
The laugh leaves.
I read the sentence three times.
Do not make your fear his assignment.
This is exactly the kind of thing Soo-jin says when she has decided to stop being funny and start being correct. It is rude. It is useful. It is going to haunt me for several business days.
I think about Nolan in the hotel room, his hand in mine in the dark. Nolan choosing to stay when every old reflex in him had already started leaving. Nolan in the film room, two months of not saying what the room meant and coming back anyway.
