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She never thought she would be back here, and yet, if asked about her childhood home in New Jersey, Samira Mohan would have said she also never thought she’d ever have to say goodbye.
Any nostalgia she feels about the house isn’t about the house at all but about the upbringing she could have had, should have had, both parents flanking her as she did homework at the heavy cherrywood dining table instead of just amma left to scold her for writing with too much force, so much so that scratches remain in the tabletop, permanent scars.
Still, it aches to hollow the house out one box at a time. Amma has already donated or discarded most else, one ill-timed text message after another. For Samira, the answer to “do you still want this?” is “no” more often than it isn’t, with the few exceptions to be imminently rehomed to Pittsburgh, carefully placed in Jack’s trunk and backseat: a shoebox of written treasures, proof of appa’s hand and cards from beloved teachers; albums of photos from class trips taken on Kodak disposables, rare moments of adolescent delight.
There’s a tub, too, of t-shirts she’ll never wear again but can’t bring herself to let go of, stacked atop each other with excuses like “I’ll wear this one to sleep” or “maybe I’ll turn them into a quilt, sewing can’t be so different from suturing, can it?”; and her letter jacket as well (what she will do with it, she has no clue, but running her hands over the patches—HOSA and AcaDec and Rotary International and more, each so hard won—had caused such a swoop in her stomach that she knew it was a keep, at least for now).
Finally, a box of old journals. She grabs one at random, a light purple faux suede volume with a magnet closure, and lets it fall open to a random page, her gaze coming to rest on a single scrawled line of text.
Sometimes I just feel so alone.
“I think that’s everything, unless you found more you want to bring h—whoa, hey.”
The sound of Jack’s voice in the doorway has Samira jolting her head up in surprise, the journal slipping off of her lap as a result. She doesn’t have a mirror, but she can feel the way her face is arranged, sees the expression Jack must have seen reflected back to her in his own: eyes a little wide, lips parted, brows knit. She has the overwhelming urge to ask him for a pen so that she can reply to the turquoise-inked version of herself, the vibrant color so contrary to the words and the familiar hunger behind them.
It won’t always be like this, she’d write.
Jack closes the remaining distance between them to join her on the twin mattress and take her hands in his. He may only have a few inches on her, but he’s always seemed a little larger than life to her, and never more so than now, a veritable giant in her childhood bedroom.
One day you’ll be more tended to and less lonely than ever before.
It’s not a question, not really. When Jack first floats the idea of moving in together, Samira’s immediate answer is yes. She already spends more time at his place than at hers anyway, her impact on his life made visible through a modest but comprehensive assortment of products integrated into his bathroom counter, his dresser, his shelves. Tinted sunscreen, dark lip stain that rarely sees use but alights him like nothing else when it does, rollerball perfume from a vintage shop she frequents with Trinity; a cardigan here, a pair of sweatpants there, though she prefers wearing his clothes or nothing at all in this space; her go-to brand of oat milk and favorite snacks, steadily becoming his, too.
And yet, when he clarifies that he means the two of them getting a new place together, what she feels in her gut is something like fear.
It’s the kind of fear that doesn’t listen to logic: fear that she isn’t worth Jack relinquishing this, the last real place he experienced Annie. This, a place he’s spent untold amounts of time, money, and energy, physical and emotional, to modify not only for accessibility but for refuge. Fear that he will recognize as much before long and resent her for it and everything will follow from there. Not just a home hollowed out, but a relationship, too.
Samira Mohan knows Jack Abbot and so she knows, bone deep, that he wouldn’t. But there have been other things in life she thought she knew just as intimately that gave out from under her, haven’t there, and she can’t stand this being one of them.
When she finally puts voice to her anxiety, are you sure, he can’t help the smile that forms. That fear braided together with hope—it’s a combination he’s known before and he takes a long, hard look around the space as if seeking out Annie’s ghost before finding Samira’s gaze again and nodding, as encouraging and resolute as the nods he gives her in trauma bays. The nods that always, without fail, steady her hands.
“It’s time,” he says softly, and not just to her. “I don’t just want to move you into my space, I want us to move into our space. To create a home together. Is that – is that something you want, too?”
Is that something you want: yes.
Is that something I am allowed to want?
It’s one thing to step into spaces that existed before her and will, therefore, exist after her, too. If need be, she can rewrite the story at the end: a pilgrim, just passing through.
It’s another thing entirely, with real significance and stakes, to build something new with someone. She’s rarely ever had the impulse, was never really one to pass time daydreaming about what her wedding dress might look like, or her car, or her house. Her classmates always seemed to have skin in the game when they played M.A.S.H. in between bells or at the lunch table, but not Samira.
There’s something about Jack, though. With him, she’s able to picture so clearly what their home—their future—might look like. With him it’s easy, textured technicolor.
Samira exhales. Lets herself dream.
“Yes.”
Packing takes what feels to Samira like an embarrassingly short amount of time. By the end of it, taking stock of how little she has to show for the four years she’s spent in this apartment, she feels more than a little unmoored.
It’s always been something of a catch-22 for her: that her place would undoubtedly be more of a sanctuary to her if she invested the effort in making it hers, but that it never quite felt worth that effort, the ensuing blank walls spurring her to spend more and more time in the halls of PTMC, more of a home to her than her tiny walk-up.
(Was it not enough that the century-old building had character of its own, clawfoot tub and exposed brick and all? That she had her yoga mat permanently unfurled in the corner of her main room that got sun? That she had a cloud of washi-taped polaroids around her nightstand and an overgrown pothos—something to nurture in lieu of another cat; in lieu of, most days, nurturing herself—stuffed into the built-in bookshelf?
What more was there?)
Treating her home like little more than a glorified on-call room was a self-cannibalizing thing, she knew, but given her uncertainty in where she’d land for a fellowship or an attending position, she didn’t much like the alternative of putting down roots that might bear fruit. Fruit that could ripen; fruit that could rot.
Still, Samira finds herself struggling to make her exit for the final time. Jack finds her laying in the center of what was her bedroom, between lines in the carpet from the push-pull of her vacuum. She went through all of residency here. Fell in love with Jack here—Jack, who lets out an exaggerated groan as he lowers himself onto the floor beside her.
“Did you ever have those glow-in-the-dark stars on your bedroom ceiling when you were young?” she asks after a while, her eyes fixed above them.
Jack lolls his head to the side to look at her. He never blinks at her non sequiturs, not when he could make a show of loving the way her mind works instead.
“I didn’t. Did you?”
She shakes her head. “One of my friends did. I always wanted them, but I never bothered asking. It just felt . . . I don’t know, unnecessary, I guess.”
It’s more of a giveaway than she intended it to be, quiet admission that she was already so self-denying, so disconnected from her own wants, at so young an age. Even before appa’s death, but more so after. Whatever she was dealt would suffice, be it amma’s threadbare love or a dinged-up coffee table on her neighborhood Buy Nothing.
She scans Jack’s face for pity, but finds only patience. “Let’s put some up in our bedroom then,” he says simply.
Samira lets out a hum. Shrugs him off with a murmur of something that sounds like for little kids.
(There is the matter of the office, which they’ve both separately thought could one day transition into a nursery. Maybe there.)
“Okay, so no stars then. But,” he props himself up on his arm to better level her with that stare that sees right to the core of her, “you’re allowed to ask for what you want.” It is perhaps the greatest gift he’s ever given her, his insistence on instilling the principle in her. On outright asking: What is it that you want, Samira?
And the answer is simple, isn’t it? She wants a home and she’s got one, right here in front of her, one she embraces now. One that embraces her in return, acquiesces eagerly when she deepens the kiss before pushing on his shoulders. He gives way to the pressure, tugging her shorts down her hips and mouthing at the mess he finds between her legs, sweet tang, sweat-tacky. Her mind wanders then to the deep green blackout curtains she saw online, the perfect mix of plush and utilitarian, and wouldn’t those look nice in the bedroom, and—yes, yes, please, right there.
Samira slows her approach to the couch when she spots the large, flat box at Jack’s feet.
“I have a housewarming gift for you,” he sing-songs in response to her raised eyebrow.
She huffs out an incredulous laugh as she sinks onto the cushion beside him. “You don’t get me a housewarming gift, Jack. That’s not how this works.”
“Says who?” His grin is big and boyish. “I’ve always bucked against the establishment, sweetheart, you know that.”
She rolls her eyes fondly, but she’s already bending at the waist to guide the present onto her lap. It’s a decent weight yet more malleable than she expected; the cardboard gives a little at her touch, curving just so atop her thighs. Something soft then, she thinks.
“Anyway,” he chimes back in, quieter as she tugs at the night-dark ribbon knotted around the box, “we’ll both get use out of it, but I think—well. You’ll see.”
And she does, another laugh bubbling out of her as she realizes what she’s looking at.
The quilt is expertly done in accents of navy and blush and cream, but it’s the blocks that really catch her eye, each a different shirt brought home from their trip to Jersey. Several from her years at Rutgers, of course, but just as many from high school and earlier, both sentimental and silly: the track and field team tees for both years she made varsity; the back of her senior shirt, complete with Sharpied inside jokes; her uniform from weekends volunteering at Robert Wood Johnson.
“I can’t believe you,” she says, unfolding it even further. “One time. I mentioned seeing something like this on Instagram one time . . .”
Then her voice trails away.
Slowly, Samira trails her fingers to a square that isn’t her own. The worn cotton is familiar, though, and her eyes fall closed; like if she just shuts them tightly enough, wills hard enough, she might be able to smell appa’s cologne. The fragrance is long gone, but the memory of falling asleep on his chest, drooling on this very shirt—it remains, stronger than ever, reignited by the fabric beneath her palm.
Eyes back open, her vision blurs as she takes in the others. Tourist shirts from work trips and the rare vacation: the Big Apple, Houston, Alcatraz. A Steelers shirt he regularly sported even as he insisted American football was a misnomer, inferior to boot. Yet another is entirely devoid of pattern and text, just a plain, placid blue. It’s plenty special still, stitched in with just as much care.
“. . . Jack?” she breathes.
“I, um.” Suddenly nervous, he scratches at the base of his neck, then rests his hand on the center of her back. “I asked your mom if she had any old shirts of your dad’s she’d be willing to part with when we visited,” he explains gently. “I thought it might be nice to have a tangible part of him here, because I know starting fresh is hard, but—we’re never fully starting over, are we? Not really.”
Samira doesn’t realize she’s crying until Jack uses the hand at her back as leverage to pull her into a hug, the quilt crushed between their chests. “Oh, honey,” he murmurs against her temple. “I’m sorry.”
“No, god, Jack.” She pulls back just enough to look at him, her eyes bright. “It’s—I’m—” but no one word can capture the enormity of what she’s feeling, grief and gratitude and disbelief and epiphany all in one. “This is really ours, isn’t it?” she settles with, barely louder than a whisper.
Even as he replies, plies her with sweet nothings, the answer is all around them, indisputable. It’s the cushioned bay window seat they’ve turned into a reading nook. A sliver of sun illuminates the photo of Annie hanging there—book in hand, mid-laugh—an ofrenda by any other name.
It’s the medical journals with two distinct sets of handwriting in the margins, merged now and housed on the low shelf of their coffee table within easy reach (and in the office, and on their matching nightstands). The discerning reader could trace their love story through the annotations, tentative and formal at first, then sprawling, imbued with warmth.
It’s the pothos, over the mantel.
Carefully transplanted with room to grow, its vines curling insistently toward the light.