And Still

Jan in the chair (the slightly crooked beloved one), morning

#01

The Lamp, Four

Lamp on at 6:58.

Sat in the chair — the right rear leg shimmed with the same piece of cardboard from 2027, which has now held for three years and which I will not change because to change it would be to lose something I can't name. The book in my lap was my book. Re-reading it — hadn't read the chapbook the way a stranger might until now. The piece I was on was the chair piece. Still the piece. The chair was still the chair. The cat on the arm. The wall held five framed things, the grandfather photo among them. The book is mine. The book is, in the reading, ours.

Close-up of the chipped clay cup on the counter beside the new (Mom-bought) teapot, both steaming

#02

The Cup, Three Chips

Still the cup.

The first chip. The second chip on the base. The third, on the rim opposite the first — arrived sometime in late autumn, after the funeral, on a morning I don't remember. Some things get more themselves the more they chip. The cup is mine. The cup outlives the year that gave it the third chip.

#03

The Twelfth Pot

Twelve pots and Greg.

Still not out of windowsill. The basil cutting from Sarah has grown in — four small leaves a month, enough for a small dish, never quite enough, the way basil never is. The twelfth is the most blue of the row, from a studio week with cobalt slips. The row's stray. The row got longer by one. It is, in February, twelve pots and Greg.

Jan by the window in Sunday-at-four light, holding tea — , the eighth one — Jan at the window in the foreground (the canonical pose), August in soft background on the couch rea…

#04

Sunday at Four (Eight)

Sunday at four is its own weather.

The first was tired. The second was heavy. The third settled. The fourth lit. The fifth home. The sixth had another person in it. The seventh carried the grandfather. The eighth — this Sunday, snow off the fire escape — is the peace plus one minus one. The plus of August on the couch. The minus of the grandfather not in any apartment anywhere in the world. The peace learned to hold both. The light is going. I am, this Sunday, where I am.

Jan on the couch in the evening, lamp on, phone to her ear

#05

The Wednesday Voice Note (Mom, Still)

Mom called Wednesday at 7:51 PM.

The call has been different since June — longer, twenty-six minutes most weeks. Mom told me: the bakery has a new awning. The dumpling shop's son's wife is pregnant again. She's been re-reading the grandfather's books. There is one she'd never read all the way through — thin, history, a green cover. Reading it now. Since the funeral she doesn't say your grandfather — she says the grandfather or 你外公, the Mandarin word with the Mandarin weight. The call ended at 8:14 PM. Eat well, take care, call me. I said love you. Mom said, in English, love you too.

August at the kitchen sink, mid-evening, drying a dish from a small dinner the two of them have just had

#06

August, Drying a Dish

August at the sink drying a dish.

Dinner was small — pasta, salad, a bottle of wine he'd brought. He said it wasn't the best version. I thought it was good. His coat on the hook. His book on the side table. The apartment was the apartment plus him — part-his by accumulated Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Sunday afternoons. He hadn't moved in. He'd simply been here, in a low and steady rhythm. The dish was dried. He said what's next. I said coffee, in two minutes, on the couch. He said good plan. That was the conversation.

A small wall-shelf in the apartment, late afternoon

#07

The Book, on the Shelf

Three shelves now.

Two copies of the chapbook. The third notebook, filled. The fourth, filled ten days after the funeral — the handwriting in that one smaller, more compressed, the pen pressed harder than usual. The fifth, half-full. The river-at-dusk photo from Hangzhou. Mira's letters, forty-seven, tied with cream string. In 2026 the shelf had two old paperbacks and nothing else. I didn't plan the shelf. The shelf just kept receiving things. Now I can't see the wall behind it. That, too, is a kind of fullness.

#08

The Wall

> Jan in the foreground of the frame, in profile, looking at the wall.

The cardigan on. Expression on Jan: the softly absorbed face — soft direct eyes (taking in the wall), neutral-soft brows, the small contained mouth of standing in front of an accumulation. Stood at the wall Wednesday evening. Hadn't really looked at it in the year since I'd hung the grandfather's photo and note. Five things: Mom's card. The Hangzhou photo. The grandfather photo. The framed note — the eight characters. The faded yellow sticky note from 2026, now more rectangle-on-the-wall than legible. It had said I do not want my 29th year to start like this. Four years older now. The sticky note is the oldest thing on the wall. I can't read it anymore. Don't need to. Stood there a minute and a half. Went back to the chair. August didn't ask what I'd been looking at. He is, by now, the kind of person who doesn't ask.

Jan at the kitchen table in early evening (lamp just-on, the windows outside the dark-blue late February)

#09

> The rust cardigan on.

The reading glasses on. The teapot, the chipped cup with three chips, Mim on the chair, the windowsill with Greg and twelve pots, the small shelf with the chapbook and the notebooks, the framed everything on the wall, the cardigan, the lamp, the page, *a small stack of printed manuscript pages on the table beside the notebook (the first thirty pages of the new book — Sunday at Four, the long one), August in the chair across the kitchen table, reading the manuscript with a pen in his hand. Both of them at the kitchen table. Expression on Jan: quietly settled, present, the smallest real soft smile — soft open eyes, neutral-soft brows, the small contained smile that is Season 4's final face. Expression on August:* softly absorbed in the manuscript — soft warm eyes (down at the page), neutral brows, the small even mouth, the pen poised but not yet marking. Six-PM Wednesday in late February. The fifth notebook open. The lamp on. August across the table with the manuscript. The cat on the chair. The apartment still small enough to fit me. The this is still small. The for now is still forever. The more came in. The slowly held. And still. The lamp is on. The chair is the chair. The chipped cup has three chips now. The card is on the wall. The grandfather's photo is on the wall. The book is being written. I am, after all of it, still here.