Chapter 2 — What He Left

She hadn't asked him anything personal. Neither had he. They'd talked about insomnia and coffee quality and names and that had been enough for three hours, which was its own information.People who were really struggling didn't always need someone to ask about the struggle. Sometimes they needed someone to just — be in the same radius without requiring them to explain themselves.He'd gone to Manny's that first night because it was the only light he could see from his window at 3 AM and he'd been lying in the dark for two hours and the dark had gotten heavy.He'd go back because of what she'd said. Same time tomorrow? I'm always here.The matter-of-fact sadness of it. Not self-pity — she didn't seem like someone prone to self-pity. Just the honest statement of a person who had learned the rhythms of their own difficulty.He understood that.* * *He called his mother on Wednesday.She asked how Chicago was. He said fine. She asked if he was eating. He said yes, though the honest answer was: not particularly, and what he was eating was whatever required the least decisions.She didn't ask about Priya. His mother had a finely calibrated sense of what not to ask."Your sister is coming to visit in December," she said. "You should come home for Christmas.""I'll think about it.""Arjun." Her voice had the specific weight of a mother who knows when her child is not fine. "What do you need?"He thought about this. He was at his desk at work, looking at load calculations for a bridge project, and the question was too large for the context."I don't know yet," he said."Okay," she said. That was what he loved about his mother. She accepted the not knowing as a real answer.After he hung up he went back to the load calculations.He thought about what Inaaya had said.It levels off. You stop expecting sleep and then it's less aggressive. It's still there but it stops feeling like a fight.He was still in the fighting stage. He wondered when he'd get to the leveling.