Nine moments of being seventy-five in the same apartment.
Winter 2073. Jan is 75. Not severe. She has bruised a hip; she has not broken anything. She has stayed in the hospital one night and come home.
Tuesday morning, early January.
Left foot doesn't lift high enough over the small rug. Down hard. The cup clatters onto the linoleum, hot tea down my leg. I lie on the floor — soaked, humiliated, and suddenly terrified in a way I haven't been before. August comes in from the bedroom. He says Jan. I can't say I'm fine. I say I'm wet. He helps me up. The cup is intact. By 7:42 my hip is hurting badly.
Cab to the ER at 9:14.
Thirty-eight minutes through morning traffic — I hold August's hand the whole ride, which I don't usually do in cabs, which he doesn't remark on. The doctor at 11:42. X-ray at 12:14. Diagnosis at 1:42: deep-tissue bruise, left hip. No fracture. Go home. Take it easy. I take it easy with a face that probably isn't fooling anyone.
One night for observation.
I am 75 and the doctor doesn't need to say why. August stays. The room is a single on the fourth floor with a view of the FDR and the East River, dark and flat in January. He sleeps in the partner-chair and doesn't sleep well and doesn't complain about either. Discharge Wednesday at 10:42. Cab home.
Home at 11:42.
August walks me from the door to the chair, hand on my arm. Nine comes over slowly — she knew something was off, the way she always knows — and gets on the chair-arm. The cat accepts me back without making a thing of it. Sit in the chair. The lamp is on. The hip is still bad. Manageable is the word I'm using.
Two days on the sofa.
Mom's quilt. Mom's cardigan — thirty-one years since she died and the cardigan still fits, worn soft, elbows going thin. Four re-reads on the side table. I read pieces of all four, finish none of them, don't try to write. The writing can wait. I let it wait. The sofa holds me.
Sunday morning.
The eleven blocks are now four — bodega and back. For the first time in forty-nine years of this walk, a cane. Maple, curved handle. At the medical-supply store Saturday I chose the one that least made me feel like I was carrying a cane, which is still a cane. August suggested the store. He suggested it gently. I went. The bodega-grandson — the original retired in 2052 — nods at me and then at the cane and then back at me. Equal weight.
Tuesday morning, one week after.
The notebook. Three sentences: the body has, this winter, started doing the small specific thing it has been promising for a few years. the body is not in pain. the body is, however, slower. Honest, if I'm being honest. The fall didn't cause the slower — the slower caused the fall. That's the thing I had been not-naming. The tea gets finished. The morning continues.
August hasn't made a thing of the fall.
He's been holding my hand more. His hand is on mine on the couch Tuesday evening. We don't talk about it. After thirty-five years he knows how I prefer to be cared for: acknowledge the thing, don't perform the thing. His hand is the acknowledge. The not-performing is a Kore-eda film we've seen three times, his hand still there through the credits.
Sunday at four, two weeks after the fall.
Light at the window. The cane against the chair. August on the couch reading. The cat on the chair-arm. The body is slower. The peace is here anyway. The recursion held.