![]() She is incensed that he lumps her in with “other people.” He is mostly unresponsive. He says other people put up tinfoil on their windows. His mother comes home and is enraged about the tinfoil, asking him to consider what others will think of her when they see it. It is so hot that Michael tapes tinfoil to the windows. ![]() The narrative returns to the past, two days after Francis left home. She has bright blue flowers gathered in her hands. They find her wading into the creek, which is high with spring snowmelt. The next day, a neighbor boy comes to the door and says Ruth is in the valley not wearing shoes. ![]() Michael knows about “complicated grief” that traps a person in loops of memory and makes them disoriented. Aisha says Ruth is losing her mind because it’s been ten years and she hasn’t mourned properly: she’s stuck. Michael refuses, saying he can’t have a bunch of strangers in the house. One day Aisha proposes to Michael that they host a gathering at the apartment to pay tribute to her father and to Francis, inviting old friends of his. A closeness forms between the women, and Michael is mostly left out of conversations. ![]() When she mentions having traveled to the Trinidadian village Michael’s mother Ruth and her own father are from, Ruth asks to hear about Kampala instead. ![]() In the past three months, she has worked in Manila and Austin. On the third day of Aisha’s visit, she explains over tea with Michael and his mother that she works as a freelance programmer. ![]()
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