But more importantly, I know if I sleep now, I’ll dream about you. If I dream. I hope I do, if you’ll be there. So perhaps it’s time to say goodnight, stranger.

  Or rather, goodnight, Maya.

  I’ll see you in the morning.

  Goodnight, my Malcolm. Don’t worry about whether you’ll dream of me.

  I’m already there, with you.

  5.19am

  Are you there, stranger?

  I hope not. I hope you’re sound asleep, dreaming of me or of us, or perhaps not dreaming at all. Maybe just blessed blankness, like a starless night spread out beneath a new moon.

  I should be dreaming, too, but I just had to write.

  Something amazing’s happened. Something so tiny but so amazing. It’ll probably sound silly to even bother to say… Only no, not to you. You won’t think it’s silly at all.

  I did dream of you, by the way. Not the sort of waking fever dreams I’d entertained earlier, not like that.

  An odd and innocent dream, about getting up in the morning and finding you in my kitchen. In your shirt, or maybe it was the sweater. It was gray, and it fell to the tops of your thighs. You were at the sink, washing a mug. My mug, the one I always drink from, with its illustration of calla lilies, so faded only the blues are left, and there’s a chip right where your lips want to be. My mom’s old mug.

  You were waiting for the kettle to boil. Your hair was down. It was long, darkish brown, wavy. Messy, like you’d just woken up. I think you had bangs. I don’t know what we spoke of, if we did, or even what you looked like aside from your hair and that you smiled, and when you did it made your cheeks so round.

  But then the boy woke me with his moans. I think it must have been just after three. I’d have guessed that would’ve been the worst, to be woken from such a pleasant and charming mystery by that call to duty, but you know what? It was fine.

  For the first time ever, I felt prepared. I felt rested, bizarrely. Or my body felt at peace, some sweet strain of resignation. Is that the definition of surrender, I wonder?

  I went to him as I always do. I propped him up on his bed, pulled him onto my crossed legs, and hugged him tight around the middle. Rocked him and told him it’s okay. It’s only a dream. I’m here. I sang to him. He went still a little quicker than usual, I think, after five songs. Half an album—halfway through Harvest, to be precise.

  When he fell slack, I eased him down onto the sheets. He sleeps in the fetal position, curled up tight like a little cashew. I lay next to him, with an arm flopped over his body, and let his warm head tuck up against my neck, under my chin, as he’d only allow in sleep.

  I fell asleep, myself.

  When I woke up an hour or so later, the amazing thing had happened.

  He’d flipped over. Flipped around so the little cashew was curled in toward me, face pressed to my collarbone. I could just feel his breath in the fabric there, like a secret whispered through a wall. And when I craned my neck and peeked between us, I found his tiny hand fisting the front of my sweater.

  He’s never held onto me before. I mean, for all I know he turned around because of a stomach cramp. For all I know he was dreaming of his mother, or about clinging to … to who can guess what. But a part of me wants to believe he knew it was me. Smelled me. Needed me.

  Is that crazy? I hope not.

  I’d have lay there like that forever, but he had another little spell. Not a bad one, just a minute’s soft whimpering, and when he settled next he was facing the other way again, clutching the covers and not me. But that doesn’t matter. I know I didn’t dream it.

  Later today, when the sun’s high up and the roads have dried out, I’m going to take him for our first run. Between this teeny miracle and the peace you’ve brought to my body, I’ll be able to run and run and run. No matter that it’s been months and I’ve barely slept.

  I’ll run for miles and miles and miles.

  And then maybe I’ll fly. Because I can’t remember ever feeling this light before.

  8.34am

  I’m here, Malcolm—though I did sleep. And I did dream, of us. We were in a park, I think, or maybe just a big field. The sort of place I used to love to go to and just spend hours with some falling-apart book that I probably pinched from a library. There was a lot of long grass, shielding us from view.

  Though not just us. I’m pretty sure your boy was there too. Making airplane wings with his arms, like my brother used to do. When I woke up, I was full of this strange sense of peace about it.

  And what you described only deepened that feeling. His hand clasping you, how happy it made you, all the progress you’re making with him. The lightness all of it gave you—god, I’m glad for that. A small part of me was worried that it would have been too much, or too little, or that my greed is overwhelming.

  But that part is getting smaller.

  All the worried parts of me are getting smaller. Or is it that my courage is getting bigger? I thought about standing in your kitchen, and the need to just be there was so great it practically blacked out all other considerations. In fact, I actually put on shoes.

  Do you know how long it’s been since I put on shoes?

  So long that I couldn’t walk around in them. The best I could manage was a pair of ballerina pumps, and a tentative once around the living room. But after I’d done it I sat down with them still on my feet, and I didn’t once get the urge to take them off. To throw them back in the bottom of the wardrobe and never think about them again.

  They’re mine again, now.

  And so is the balcony. I went out on it again today, but not just because of you and all the things I’d like to do. Because I wanted to. That glimpse of the world has made me curious for more, so I crept out just after dawn and watched. A guy at his sink across the street, draining his morning cup of coffee. Three girls laughing and golden and gleaming with glitter, stumbling towards home. Someone setting out a sign for a cafe I’ve never been to.

  Chocolate soup, it said, and that urge was there again.

  To go out there and see what chocolate soup actually is.

  God, I want to know what things actually are.

  P.S. Yes, I have a fringe. Or bangs, as you say.

  2.32pm

  Rest easy in the knowledge that the world isn’t passing you by entirely—I have no clue what chocolate soup is, either. And I’m a recovering hipster.

  Part of me wants to order you to walk out your door, down the hall, into the elevator, punch a button labeled L, drop down all those floors and march through the lobby, cross the street, and find out.

  But another part says no, let’s stay in. I’ll cook us soup. Non-chocolate soup.

  I know a few recipes. Caldo verde and slow-cooker split pea and this really amazing African stew that’s made with sweet potatoes and red beans and peanut butter. I know that last one sounds weird, but it’s so fucking good. You squeeze lime juice into it, and it’s like sex in your mouth.

  I’ll find us some really good crusty bread from the bakery, and we’ll eat soup like it’s been outlawed for indecency.

  I ought to admit I’m not myself just now. I’m feeling weirdly manic, actually. Can you tell?

  I went for a run, like I said I would. We got rained on a little, but overall it went great. The boy didn’t make a peep, and we went over six miles. Too far, really, because now I’ve got terrible heel blisters from my new sneakers, and I’ll probably wake up with shin splints, but I couldn’t stop. And I don’t care.

  I feel that way still. Like I can’t stop.

  I can’t figure out if this is just what feeling good again is like compared to feeling depressed, or if I’ve swung the other way temporarily. If I really have gone a little manic. It feels as though I’ve drunk eight espressos and I want to clean everything. Make everything new.

  I feel like how my mom used to get, those times when she had a recurrence. Like I want to clean the whole world.

  I remember coming downstairs around midnight when I was about twelve, the night after she’d been to the oncologist and gotten bad news. There was a scary noise coming from the basement, and I found her down there in the laundry room, and there were a dozen tennis balls banging around in the dryer. She’d washed them, and she was waiting there with a lint brush for when they were dry.

  “It’s so nice when they’re all fuzzy and bright like new, don’t you think?”

  She wasn’t crazy. Not really. I get it now. Whenever she got bad news about her cancer, she wanted to live live live live live live live. Live times a thousand. She wanted to do everything, taste everything, sing every song, make everything fun.

  Make our old tennis balls the color of highlighters again.

  I think I’m doing that too, a little bit. Only I didn’t get bad news. I’m just feeling alive and awake for the first time in months. I want to run until my feet bleed and polish all the doorknobs.

  But more than that, I want to ask about you. May I? You don’t have to answer every question. Pick one or two.

  Did I get the rest of your hair right? Is it darkish brown, the color of milk chocolate? Is it wavy?

  What color are the shoes? Tell me how they felt on your feet. Every little detail of them.

  What was your favorite book—or three—when you were a kid? Ones worth stealing from the library so you never had to give them back? Especially as I suspect you were probably a good girl who normally followed all the rules.

  What’s your brother like? Is he older or younger? Did he watch your back when you were kids or put worms down your shirt? Or both? I bet a brother could be a mix of hero and bully.

  I hope you’re having a nice day, with a good movie or book lined up for the afternoon.

  Do you have Netflix? If so, one of these evenings we’ll have to pick something to watch together. At the same time, I mean, like, we both hit play at exactly ten. Maybe something really terrible, so we could text snarky shit to each other through the whole thing.

  Okay, I’m off to polish the doorknobs. Not literally. Also not euphemistically. Probably going to clean the fridge, though. Something in there smells like rancid butt.

  Later, Maya-stranger. Bug you once the boy’s gone to bed. Maybe sooner.

  3.22pm

  Your mom doesn’t sound crazy. She sounds right.

  And you sound right too. Vibrant and alive and full of all the best ideas in the world. Elevators and eating stew and staying in and answering questions… They’re all things I never knew I wanted so much and yet I do, I do, I do.

  So I’ll start by offering you all the things you want to know.

  Yes, you got my hair right. Darkish brown, wavy. Like it’s always left to dry while pressed against a pillow—which it usually has been.

  The shoes, the shoes … a deep blue with little bows on. When I started to have some money of my own, they were the first things I bought. And I was so proud of them, so happy to have them. I thought they were the swankiest things in the world. Of course they weren’t at all, and they definitely aren’t now—they’re all scuffed around the edges and worn, like the velveteen rabbit.

  But they still felt so good on my feet. Roomy and familiar.

  And I was a good girl, oh yes I had to be a good girl for most of my teenage years. It was just that I wanted those books so badly. At night I used to lie there terrified, imagining the police coming to put me in prison for taking them. Yet somehow, even that didn’t scare me enough to not do it. In fact, after a while I started to wonder if it would be better if they did.

  All the reading I could have done in my cell.

  Because no amount of reading was ever enough. I’m not even sure if I can narrow my favourites down … there were so many I loved. Moondial and Behind the Attic Wall and Neverending Story. All those books about American girls getting murdered and making out and going steady. Ah, they drove me wild with envy.

  Even the dead ones.

  As for what I’m doing now: I’m totally waiting for you to read my hell yes let’s watch a movie together that is the greatest suggestion anyone has ever made in the history of mankind. And then we can do that as soon as possible, because it’s glorious and magical and right.

  All we have to do is decide which one.

  8.30pm

  Evening, you.

  I ate up every detail you shared like … like… Like candy, but I’m trying to figure out which kind.

  Some kind that comes in different flavors, and different shapes. So I could turn each one around with my tongue and taste it and feel it and savor it. The only candy coming to mind that meets that description is Runts, though, and Runts aren’t that great. Especially not the banana ones.

  Maybe there’s a better, British candy that fits my simile.

  I have to say, though, there was a little grain of sand in my candy box. My tooth came down on it, and I flinched, because you said you’d tell me all the things I wanted to know. You left one question out. I don’t know if you did it on purpose, and I’m not in a mood to pry, so I won’t.

  I can picture your shoes now. I can half-picture you in them. You’re like a sketchy watercolor drawing with details penciled in here and there. Your hair, your eyes. Your shoes and your hands.

  It’s much nicer than if you simply texted me a selfie, some picture posed before a bathroom mirror, phone in hand. I like the mystery of you. The paint-by-numbers.

  I never knew The Neverending Story was a book! You must know it’s a movie. I think I watched it about twenty times the summer I turned eight or nine. I got it for my birthday and played it until the VCR chewed it up. I can barely remember anything about it now.

  Wait a second…

  8.40pm

  Guess what’s on Netflix?! Any interest in that? Or is it one of those childhood movies you’d rather not discover is totally terrible to watch once you’re an adult? I rewatched The Wizard a while back and couldn’t believe how bad it was, considering how much I loved it as a kid. It was basically a two-hour ad.

  But some kids’ movies stay great, like The Princess Bride and The Iron Giant, and anything involving Jim Henson. So you never know.

  Anyhow, I’d be up for it.

  8.57pm

  Wine gums, you want wine gums. Do you have wine gums in the US? Some are strawberry and some are lime and then there’s this one that doesn’t taste like anything that exists. That one’s my favourite. I call it the white one, even though it isn’t white at all. It’s sort of translucent and kind of yellow, and yes I realise I’m talking way too much about wine gums.

  I didn’t intend to. I want to caps lock you to death about Neverending Story instead. Firstly because you watched it until your VCR chewed it up, which is amazing and stupidly made my heart start beating fast like you’d just declared undying devotion. And then secondly because oh my god let’s watch it IMMEDIATELY.

  It has to be that. I don’t care if it doesn’t hold up. I just need to watch it with you, as if we are a completely normal couple slouched together on the couch with our snark radars on red alert.

  9.13pm

  You, me, Neverending Story. It’s a date. Hit play at precisely 10:30? I should be done with my nightly chores by then, and if the boy’s going to wake it almost never happens before 2am.

  10.29pm

  You ready, stranger?

  I’m ready!

  PLAY!

  Holy shit, I remember this music!

  Okay, so I had totally forgotten how crazy amazing this song was.

  It’s like the eighties are assaulting me in the face, and I love it.

  That’s it. That’s exactly it. My ears can barely handle the complete eightiesness they’re hearing.

  Was he dreaming the credits, or…?

  I wouldn’t put it past this film. His dreams are very red and like a disco in a working men’s club in 1985.

  I’m totally taking notes on single fatherhood.

  It’s like his dad is a science teacher who accidentally walked into the wrong house. Start facing your problems?? I think he’s about four years old.

  Note to self: tousle the boy’s hair.

  Sorry, I got very invested then. I had his exact haircut and suspect kids would have put me in a dumpster as a kid, if we had dumpsters here.

  Awww.

  I’d tousle your hair, too. If you were here.

  And tweak my nose?

  Only if it’s consensual.

  Everything is consensual when it comes to you.

  Duly noted. Dude, this store is like stranger-danger central.

  It’s like he’s luring him into his gingerbread house, only the house is made of books. Which actually sounds pretty cool, to be fair.

  Fewer ants.

  Plus, being cooked in an oven would probably be a reasonable price for getting to read something that gives you a dragon that grants wishes. I mean, I would take that if I got the dragon first.

  I feel like I know everything I need to know about you from that one text. Also, this room is amazing. Kids’ movies always have amazing old dusty secret rooms.

  Oh my god, I know. Do you have any idea how jealous I was of these American kids with all their enormous houses and awesome attics that probably had Beetlejuice in them or summat?

  This giant… That’s how I feel right now, after crippling myself, running all that way. Except I want bourbon instead of rocks.

  I dunno—I distinctly remember feeling those rocks looked delicious. Easily better than bourbon. This monster really sold me on them.

  Oh god, here he comes. Or wait, never mind. I thought the creepy dragon was coming.

 

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