Chapter 14

The visits became uneven.

Stephanie had warned her at the beginning of the second list that the body lied in both directions and that the work would happen at the pace the body allowed. The pace, across the next two weeks, did exactly what she had said it would do. There were Tuesdays she was bright enough that they worked through items in detail and Stephanie was sharper than she had been in a month. There were Thursdays she was barely able to keep her eyes open and Kiya sat in the chair by the bed and read aloud from a book Stephanie had asked her to bring, a small worn paperback about a Russian woman who had been a translator for the Soviets in the war. Stephanie listened with her eyes closed and did not say anything for the hour, and Kiya read until Caroline came in and gently said that’s enough for today, dear, and Kiya closed the book and left.

She drove home those days and did not write in the notebook. The notebook was for moments. The hours of reading aloud to a dying woman were not moments. They were something else, and they did not fit on the page.

On a good Tuesday Stephanie covered three of the items she had said she wanted to come back to.

She came back to the lecture-at-his-feet item. She told Kiya, briefly, that Nathan would not deliver such a lecture standing. He would sit, in the armchair in his study or in the kitchen chair, and Kiya would kneel beside his chair, and he would speak quietly. He did not raise his voice. The lectures, when they came, would be measured and concrete and would end when he had said what he intended to say. Kiya would not respond unless he asked a direct question. When he was finished, she would say yes, Master, and that would be the closing. She would not apologize unless he asked for an apology. She would not try to explain unless he asked for an explanation.

“Listen and absorb. Speak only if asked. Close with the acknowledgment. The lecture ends. You go back to your life. He goes back to his. The thing that was wrong is now closed.”

Kiya took the notes in her head. She would write them down that night.

Stephanie came back to the bowl item. Briefly. She said: “He has a wooden bowl. It is in the kitchen. You will not find it until he puts it in your hands. When he puts it in your hands you will know what it is for. The bowl is for events. Three or four men. He will have prepared the food himself. You will eat on the floor at his feet and the men will see. None of them will touch you. At the end of the evening he will lift you up from the floor and that will be the closing.”

Stephanie’s eyes were closed when she said it. She seemed to be remembering rather than instructing.

Then she came back to the journal-for-him item.

“Buy a notebook for it before you go to him. A different kind from the one you have now. Hardcover. A specific color. Begin writing in it on the day you arrive. Write the date of every entry. Write what he did with you and what you did with him and what you felt while it was happening. Write what you did not understand. Write what frightened you. Write what you loved.”

“How often will he read it.”

“He will read it when he wants to. He may read the first entry the night you write it. He may not read it for weeks. You will not know when he has read which pages. Write every entry as if he will read it tomorrow and every entry as if he will not read it for a year. Both are true. Do not write to please him. Do not write to confess. He is reading for the truth of you, not for the performance of you. The first time you catch yourself writing toward a response you want from him, stop. Tear the page out. Start again.”

Stephanie’s voice was low. Her eyes were still closed. She had been talking for a while and the talking was costing her. Her hand on the blanket had not moved in a few minutes.

“All right,” Kiya said quietly.