Chapter 28
These lines are drawn and redrawn—who is what and to whom. I loved Eleanor, and I loved Margaret. I love them still. We live in different cities now, visit for birthdays, talk on the phone. Margaret calls me almost daily, at whatever hour she tires of the mundane.
“Why am I not famous?” she sometimes says, as soon as I pick up the phone. “Where is my world renown?”
Eleanor calls less often and in the middle of the night.
“Remember when I used to take your underwear,” she’ll say. “From your dresser, and wear them to school?” She doesn’t have any roommates, because her parents pay her rent. Sometimes she spends too many days in a row alone in her apartment. Then she wants to talk for hours, reminisce.
Now we know about missing each other, having friends who haven’t met our mothers.
Now a week apart or a month isn’t very long at all.
In each other’s absence, we feel an absence of ourselves as well.
I want to be the Mina I am for Margaret, for Eleanor, the self I occupy uniquely in their presence.
I know they want the same when they call me—to remember who they are through how I see them.
I can do that, I say, as I offer their shimmering reflection. I can be a mirror who loves you.