Mira asks me to come downstairs at 11pm on Tuesday.
She texts it, which is unusual — Mira and I communicate by being in the same house and existing in proximity and occasionally talking in the kitchen, the way people who live together communicate when the relationship is close enough that formal requests feel strange. She texts tonight because what she has to say is formal. She wants me to know it’s coming.
The kitchen table has tea on it. Two mugs. She has been sitting with hers long enough that when I pick up mine it is warm rather than hot, which means she’s been downstairs for a while, working up to this.
I sit across from her. Hold the mug. Wait.
She begins.
Not from the beginning — she begins from the part of the story she’s comfortable with telling first, the middle of the stor
