Entries centered on the humans in Oliver’s life and their baffling behavior.
She started with the closet door, which meant something, because the closet door only gets opened all the way like that — pushed flat against the wall so it stays — on days that matter. I know this because on ordinary days she takes one thing off one hanger and shuts it again before I’ve … Read more
She came into the living room holding something small and black between two fingers, the way you’d hold a bug you weren’t sure was dead yet, and said my name in the particular tone she uses right before something is about to happen to me that I haven’t agreed to. I have learned to recognize … Read more
She has a path through the kitchen when she’s cooking something that takes a while, and tonight I watched the whole thing from the doorway without once getting up, which I consider a genuine accomplishment given how long it went on. It goes: stove, counter, sink, back to stove. Sometimes the fridge gets added in, … Read more
There is a closet in this house I have never once been invited into, and tonight she opened it and pulled out a hard black case I did not know existed, shaped like nothing useful, with a handle worn pale where a hand has gripped it many times before mine ever touched this house. I … Read more
She came in through the kitchen door already moving wrong. I don’t mean unsteady. I mean wrong in the sense of not matching any of her usual patterns, the ones I have spent considerable time cataloguing — the keys-then-bag-then-shoes sequence, the particular weight of her steps when she’s tired, the way she usually stands at … Read more
The top of the refrigerator has been in my peripheral vision for weeks now. Not the side of it, which is nothing, a flat white wall I have no interest in, but the top, which I can only ever see from an angle, from the floor, looking up past the cabinets. There is a wicker … Read more
There were four extra shoes by the door before I even understood what was happening, and that should tell you everything about how prepared I was for this evening. Four shoes means two people, and two people is not nothing. One person arriving is an event. Two people arriving at once, within minutes of each … Read more
She moved the coffee table today. Not far — maybe two feet, enough to clear a rectangle of open floor in the living room — but far enough that it now sits half over the vent, which I consider a separate offense entirely and plan to address later. First things first. I needed to understand … Read more
She fell asleep on the couch today in a way I don’t think she meant to. One minute she was sitting up with her knees tucked under her, watching something on the flat bright screen with the sound down low, and the next her head had drifted sideways against the cushion and her mouth had … Read more
There is an order to things when she comes home. I did not invent this order, I only noticed it, the way a scholar notices a pattern in old texts nobody else bothered to read closely. Keys first, into the dish by the door, a small metallic clatter that means she has stopped moving forward … Read more
