Last Train to Babylon by Charlee Fam Page A

of conversation—so I don’t sound too eager. But whether I write a five-hundred-word paragraph or a simple question, he always responds with a curt one, two—or in the I’m sorry for your loss case—five-word definitive sentence.
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    Jonathan’s got a thing for passive-aggressive periods. Even this one comes off as totally condescending. He’s a big guy, with a heavyset chest, balding and always in a baseball hat. If I didn’t know any better, I’d describe him as jolly, but his tone and use of the period just feel menacing.
    Â Â Â Â  Me: Hi Jonathan! Just letting you know that I stayed late to make the Third Avenue fire edits. I think it came out well—given the deadline. It’s attached. Please let me know what you think, and let me know if you need me to do anything else. I’m happy to stay late again!
    Â Â Â Â  Jonathan: Thanks.
    Â Â Â Â  Me: Hi Jonathan! I’m really sorry, but I’m not going to be able to finish the article tonight. I have the flu and need to head home. Please let me know if that’s okay. Again, so sorry!
    Â Â Â Â  Jonathan: Feel better.
    Â Â Â Â  Me: Hi. Please see article I wrote on the dog park mugger. Let me know if it’s okay to post.
    Â Â Â Â  Jonathan: Do better.
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    I’m up early. It’s a workday, after all, so I guess my body’s just tuned to waking up at seven. I don’t get dressed, though. That’s the nice part about being here. I stay in my glasses, yoga pants, and throw a flannel robe over my ribbed tank top and set up on my backyard deck. Karen and Eli are still sleeping, but I can see into the kitchen in case my mother decides to rise and sneak up on me. I could get used to this. It’s nice not having to drag myself down five flights of stairs just to get a cup of lukewarm coffee and risk getting spat on by the crazy homeless bitch on my corner.
    My laptop rests on the glass patio table. I think about replying to Jonathan, offering some sort of explanation, but I’m not sure how one responds to I’m sorry for your loss. Do you say thanks? Do you let him know it’s all right, we weren’t very close anyway, or would he then turn around and tell me to get my ass back to work? Honestly, what I’d really like to say is something along the lines of My loss? So now it’s my loss? I haven’t lost anything. Everything I lost happened a long time ago. There’s no loss here. Nope. If anything, I’d call it a gain!
    I wonder what kind of response that would elicit from big old, jolly Johnny boy.
    Okay.
    See you next week.
    Feel better.
    I bring a mug of coffee to my lips. It’s a Looney Tunes mug from Six Flags and must be ten years old, at least. I inhale—drop of skim, no sugar, sprinkle of cinnamon. There’s something unsettling about autumn on Long Island. It’s like the air is too thin, too perfect, too quiet. I even find the distant sound of a lawn mower unnerving.
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    So I gulp the coffee, taking a moment to just appreciate the scene around me—the canal, the robin’s-egg sky, the grass for a change. We don’t get much grass in the city, not unless you make the trek to Central Park. It’s not too bad of a walk from where we are, but on those sunny days, it’s hard to find an untouched spot of grass without some obnoxious family picnicking within arms’ reach. I lean back in my chair, stare at a metal rowboat bobbing against our neighbors’ dock, but I don’t relax. I’m starting to think that I just don’t know how. I click out of Jonathan’s e-mail and hover the mouse over the Google search box in the corner of the screen. It always starts like this—the hollow feeling in my gut, my blood buzzing like crazy. It’s probably the most bizarre addiction that I’ll never admit to anyone.
    I type in his name. A few pictures come up—an old college