By This Time Tomorrow
The Good Thing
The good thing about Lai was that he let her cry. She’d been afraid that he would try to touch her, hug her, say something to the effect of telling her she shouldn’t cry. She wished the glow from the computer were a solid thing—she could hold onto it while she shook. Lately her dreams had been populated by different iterations of Lai, walking toward her, walking away from her, always a haze surrounding him so she couldn’t clearly see his face but knew, even without seeing, that it was him. Most often, they stood a few yards apart, and although the haze obscured his mouth, she knew he was speaking to her. She couldn’t hear him. The dream went on for hours. She could never wake herself.
The flame
They’d already kissed by then, but it was different when they put their mouths to the same thing that would take them to who knew where. She’d known that with the first joint and with all those afterwards. There was still ash on the railing of the staircase. It’d been too many days. She didn’t think the insurance company was going to give them much money. She should tell Lai. She opened the door to his office and shut it very carefully, facing it. She felt it click in her fingers. Lai was watching her when she turned around. The monitor of the computer displayed the desktop—he’d minimized everything. His wallpaper was a generic photo of a flower that had come pre-installed.
The Days After
She wished he had mentioned it. She wanted to call the men up now. She’d tell them. It had been her. They could stop casting looks at the bottle of fish sauce on the kitchen table, stop staring at Lai’s slippered feet, stop whispering when they didn’t think he was listening. They could stop watching—though never speaking to—her. Like she was a glass too close to the edge of a table or an exquisitely white cat that kept trying to lick its paws clean of ash, but kept failing, but kept trying anyway.
The Hotel
Maria saw that Lai’s eyes snapped wider when he stepped into the room. His cheeks had grown mottled as he came down from drunkenness. He toed off his shoes and walked around the room, touching with his usual precision the polished mahogany desk, the crystal vase, the bouquet of flowers still bundled in waxy paper on the bed. He picked up the flowers, then frowning, said, “I should thank your parents.”
The Untouched
She had been hungry but didn’t want to spend any time at the stove. One of the burners still worked. Lai had made eggs the other day. Otherwise, they mostly ate soup. She microwaved a bowl and brought it to him. She hadn’t left it in for much time; it was barely warmer than her fingers. She’d been afraid. She kept envisioning microwaving it for too long and dropping it on her way to Lai, scalding vegetables and shards of porcelain everywhere. Crusted on top of the ash, which they’d been instructed not to touch, so that the insurance company could make a more accurate estimate.
