37. Margot
MARGOT
The project is finished. The work is done. What the work built is not.
The research space is cleared when I arrive. The shared bookshelf stripped, the annotated copies of Kimmerer and Lorde returned to the departments they came from. The fluorescents are on. The Chemex is on the shelf. I am going to pack it last.
I begin with my desk. The Pat Levin mugs, the one with the chip and the one without. I brought two in September. Both are going home now, to the shelf beside the tea and the lint rollers.
Her desk is half-cleared. She came yesterday for the electronics.
What remains is the archaeology of Priya: three pens, none capped.
The Tsing article with her marginalia, the passage she circled three times and wrote YES beside in letters large enough to read from four feet away.
A dog hair on the surface. Golden. Fine. Kali’s.
I pick up the dog hair. I hold it for a moment. I put it in my pocket.
The Chemex. The wooden collar is warm from the light.
The glass is clean. I washed it yesterday after the last pot we made together.
The Chemex goes in her box. I am not sure yet where it will live.
I am learning to leave certain things undetermined.
The learning is recent and ongoing and not entirely comfortable and I am doing it anyway.
The room is empty. Two boxes, two bare desks, the fluorescent hum. Seven months ago I walked in here with a lamp and a six-foot distance and a system designed to keep anyone else from getting close enough to matter. The distance is four feet now. The distance is no feet now. The lamp is at home.
I pick up both boxes. One in each arm. I carry them to my office, where they will sit on the floor beside my desk until I decide what goes where. I am in no rush. The deciding can wait.
I turn off the fluorescents. The door closes behind me.
The April light is on the quad. I pass the place by the trees without stopping. The place is just a place. The earrings are on my ears, both of them, always both.
I walk to Lavender House. It is Thursday morning. She will be there.
The wall is coming down. The light is good.