BEFORE I DIE, I PRAY TO BE BORN | ✓

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THURSDAY
14.11.1996
ISAIAH

               My heart bolts at the single knock against the passenger seat window. When I spot Dorian peering through the glass, the adrenaline spike morphs into something like thistle infesting the space between my lungs, but, with a deep inhale and internal stream of curses, I stretch to open the door.

He climbs inside in that clumsy manner of his that makes me wonder whether he's recently been transported to the twentieth century from the Regency era and has never sat in a car before. Once settled, door shut, he adjusts the twists out of his joggers and looks at me.

We've been avoiding each other for a week.

Dorian has created a routine to follow: wake up at eight, use the computer in the reception to look through his emails, then work on his music until he prepares dinner. He hasn't invited me to eat with him again nor have I dared to eat the food he makes even when there are several portions of leftovers.

I, on the other hand, decay into an unholy mess. I blame it on the amount of coffee I'm drinking but maybe it's the grief. Either way, I don't sleep more than a few hours at a time and the fog stuffed into my mind — whether caused by fibro, anaemia, grief, nicotine withdrawal, excessive caffeine intake, or plainly November — guarantees I can't focus even on recreational reading.

So, when I'm not packing away her things and don't have to deal with the logistics of my mother's death, I spend most of my time driving around and listening to music as though I can afford to waste so much petrol. I'd like to take walks instead but my body seems adamant to kill me, more so than usual.

Like Auntie Tamila, several people have invited me to tea and thrice as many have brought flowers or food once word spread I was staying at Moonlight. Gifts and condolences are hard to accept after I renounced all of Halsett to flee my mother.

I regret that now. There's so much love here. God is so much louder in the country.

Dorian watches me, tentative in a way to be expected from a man who shares the bed with an ex who refuses to talk to him. 'What are you doing?'

I chew on the plastic lollipop stick still between my teeth though the sugar ended an hour ago. He's not asking me what I'm doing: he can plainly see The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas open in my lap and Dorian never speaks just for the sake of using his voice. What he's asking is what am I doing reading in my car in the parking of our motel at midnight.

I scan his expression for the answer he wants to hear. When I find no hints, I lower the music and try to elbow through the mental smog enough to manage a coherent sentence.

'Thought I'd come in late and you could pretend to be asleep like we been doing every night.'

'I've not been pretending.'

'Yeah, you have.' The lollipop stick clashes against my molars. 'I've been avoiding you too.'

Dorian says nothing and we listen to the first verse of Waiting in Vain in stillness. I thumb the laminate wrapping around The Black Tulip, a copy I borrowed from the school at Mrs Carter's insistence, probably so I have to go return it and she can come up with more insanity about me becoming a teacher.

When the chorus ends, I slip the novel onto the dashboard, pull the plastic stick from my mouth, and force my eyes back to Dorian. 'I'm sorry about the dissertation. I shouldn't've asked you to do that.'

A smile tugs once at his mouth. 'I was glad to.'

'You were a proper help if that makes it any better.' I attempt a laugh but the bubbles diffuse behind my sternum and all that comes out is a weak cough.