12

When Tay did not label a social event as important, she did not go anywhere. In her old house, she lived within her inner world. She baked and cooked, slowly cleared out rooms, repainted furniture, tended the garden, and dried flowers. Everything on her own, including ironing Tay’s shirts. She fused with her house, which—along with the neighbor’s cats and the birds in the trees—was the only thing that kept her company.

She would never have said of herself that she had such a side. Calm and gentle. Often she wondered where the wild and independent self had gone. Whether the illness had broken her this way, and whether the strong medication she had to take as part of the research had washed her mind clean. She experienced an unfamiliar peace and sense of safety, into which, over time, intrusive questions nonetheless began to creep.

…

And so one day, with the arrival of summer, an answer came in the form of a small slip of paper tossed into her mailbox. It was completely shabby and dirty, as if someone had crumpled it in their hand a hundred times and carried it around in their pockets for weeks. It did not contain many words, yet it shattered all of her inner calm. It was her former boyfriend Rohn, apologizing in a few sentences for his departure and offering belated congratulations on the magnificent wedding.

It was just a note, and it didn’t even include a return address between the lines. Still, in the evenings Mishi sat despondently on the veranda, reading it over and over. In her mind she kept returning to Rohn. She lost herself in memories of nights spent dancing, nights spent making love, of the heat of his skin and the scent of his breath. She trembled all over even on the most sultry twilights; the flowers on the windows wilted during that time, and no one ironed the shirts anymore.

In the mornings she stared at the pills—the ones for which she had changed her name. More and more she wanted to throw them into the trash and live passionately for a few more months as she once had, before resting in a grave years later with the name Taris engraved on it.

Tay noticed her sorrowful distraction. It stayed with her even in public, where she always put on the proper mask. She had grown sick of playing. She could not stop thinking about the slip of paper she carried with her at all times. She told Tay that the medication was unsettling her. She could not bring herself to mention Rohn to him. Tay did not ask further and let Mishi be. They continued with the agreement, which they had already largely carried out.

Thus another two months passed, and by the end of summer Mishi felt on the verge of madness. She found out where Rohn was currently living, what he was doing, and whether he was seeing anyone…