Chapter 138: Chapter 138

Through the window the campus was beginning its Friday morning. People between buildings. The specific energy of a week arriving at its end.

I said: my father.

She said: yes.

I said: Sunday dinner.

She said: the pasta.

I said: yes.

She said: how is it going. The ongoing.

I said: slow. The right pace. We had a good conversation Wednesday.

She said: about what.

I said: the seven years. Specifically. What they were made of.

She said: and.

I said: and some of it was what I expected. And some of it was things I hadn't considered. About what it was like for him. The specific quality of having known something and not been able to say it.

She said: the Marsh situation.

I said: yes. He knew her name from his cousin David. He tried to say something. It became part of a different conversation.

She said: the marriage.

I said: yes. And then the margin got too small and then the separation and then seven years.

She said: and now.

I said: and now Sunday dinners and the long conversation finding its pace.

She said: you're building that too.

I said: yes.

She said: the building phase.

I said: the building phase.

She said: without knowing when the competition is.

I said: yes.

She said: you're patient.

I said: learning.

She said: it looks like you already have it.

I said: it looks different from the outside.

She said: yes. Most things do.

She finished her acai bowl.

She said: Declan.

I said: yes.

She said: the you-data file.

I said: he told you about the file.

She said: Dom told me.

I said: Dom.

She said: Dom tells me things. It's a system.

I said: Dom is in the Sharp Edges group chat.

She said: Dom is sub-category four in the you-data file.

I said: you know the sub-categories.

She said: I know some of them.

I said: how many.

She said: seven.

I said: out of twelve.

She said: yes.

I said: which seven.

She said: I'm not telling you.

I said: Sofía.

She said: it would ruin the discovery.

I said: the discovery.

She said: you're going to find out each one eventually. Ruining the order defeats the purpose.

I said: there's a purpose to the order.

She said: the order is intentional.

I said: he organized the sub-categories intentionally.

She said: twelve sub-categories with intentional sequence.

I said: since October.

She said: since the pool.

I said: the pool at six-fifteen.

She said: yes.

I said: the wrong lane.

She said: the current.

I said: there was a current.

She said: Zara.

I said: it was an indoor pool.

She said: I know.

I said: indoor pools don't have currents.

She said: I know.

I said: and yet.

She said: and yet.

I said: I maintain my position.

She said: I know you do.

She said: it's sub-category nine.

I looked at her.

She said: the lane debate. Sub-category nine. The one he called the argument that has not improved.

I said: he categorized the lane debate.

She said: with three entries.

I said: October November and yesterday.

She said: he's thorough.

I said: insufferably.

She said: both things.

I said: yes.

She was quiet for a moment

She looked at her bowl.

She said: Zara.

I said: yeah.

She said: the dinner. Before First.

I said: yes.

She said: I want to do it properly.

I said: I know.

She said: not because I owe you something.

I said: I know.

She said: because it's worth doing properly.

I said: I know.

She said: Before First is yours before anyone publishes it.

I said: yes.

She said: and the dinner is the room it gets to be in before it belongs to other people.

I said: yes.

I said: Sofía.

She said: yeah.

I said: the corner table.

She said: yes.

I said: you sat there in the first week.

She said: yes.

I said: and I sat beside you because there was nowhere else.

She said: yes.

I said: and then I kept sitting there.

She said: yes.

I said: both things.

She said: both things.

I said: the dinner.

She said: six weeks.

I said: Anna and Rika and Patricia on the screen.

She said: at the head of the table.

I said: Lily's spatial arrangement.

She said: her preferred option with supporting rationale.

I said: what was the rationale.

She said: she said the people who waited the longest should be at the center of the celebration. And all three of them waited.

I said: Rika waited thirty years.

She said: yes.

I said: Patricia waited eighteen.

She said: yes.

I said: Anna is waiting right now.

She said: yes.

She said: and Clara.

I said: Clara is on the seating chart.

She said: Ingrid is bringing her. Video call from Germany. She's on the left side of the screen.

I said: Ingrid and Clara.

She said: yes.

I said: you invited a fourteen-year-old to a video dinner.

She said: Lily insisted.

I said: Lily.

She said: she said Before First was written for the Claras. The Clara should be there.

I said: yes.

I said: yes she should.

She said: yes.

We sat in the east side place in the Friday morning. The good light. The specific quality of a space that had been doing one thing well for a long time.

I said: the fourth line.

She said: you found it.

I said: not yet. But it's close.

She said: it'll come.

I said: Declan says the third lap.

She said: you're at the east side acai bowl place on a Friday morning.

I said: not the rink.

She said: different surface.

I said: same principle.

She said: yes.

I thought about the fourth line. About what came after the third. About the thing after the landing. About finding out. About the after being bigger than the before.

I thought about what more meant. About the reform committee in the building phase.

The fourth line arrived in the east side acai bowl place on a Friday morning in the good light with Sofía across from me and the window showing the campus deciding what kind of day it was going to be.

The fourth line was this.

More means you find the next person who needed the word and you give it to them and what they do with it becomes the story you didn't know you were writing.

I pulled out my notebook.

I wrote it.