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By Root 494 0

ongoing task to prove to herself there were things to be done. I sat on a stool at the counter and watched her move through the kitchen and into the new computer room, pass back through the kitchen on her way to the basement door. Humming some pleasant tune. Or from the living-room couch I could see her outside working in the garden, digging into mud and wiping sweat from her forehead with the topside of her wrist. Other times she would exit stage altogether. Errands conceived from those succinct, colorful notes stuck to the phone and pages of her day calendar. Off to coffee and lunch with her small circle of women friends left over from days of teaching or that bygone era when my family attended church. These were mostly divorced women who I believed relied on my mother as a wholly different sort of character, the compassionate listener who could serve as a hopeful reminder that even in these days of widespread matrimonial ruin, certain marriages could still endure.

The doorbell rang not long after she left. The air outside hung like a curtain, thick with humidity and birdsong and green-yellow greens brilliant in the sun. A delivery woman stood on the porch wearing all brown, box in one hand, signature pad in the other. Her dark face was rich with layers of matte makeup, her hair shiny. I looked from the package, addressed to me, to her brown truck waiting in the street, hazards clicking.

The box was from Audrey. I set it on the kitchen island and pulled a paring knife from the magnetic strip above the spice rack. I walked a few uncertain circles around the island, grim revolutions like a field beast that's stumbled upon another creature's kill. I picked it up, set it down, walked away, returned. I went and sat on the couch and weighed my options. I realized the knife was still in my hand. If I wasn't careful, this package was going to defeat me. So I went and slid the knife through the packing tape and watched the top of the box pop upward. Inside I found purple tissue paper, crinkly hand-torn pieces stuffed to protect a smaller box within. Inside this smaller box I found more tissue paper and a starfish with two of its legs missing. I looked for a note or card and found nothing, though I couldn't help but be impressed by the care Audrey must have devoted to the packing job.

For a brief second I viewed this gesture as something good, even selfless. A gift. But maybe not. Maybe reimbursement of previously extracted generosity Maybe winking retribution, a nebulous and loaded inside joke. Four years ago I had found this starfish washed onto the jagged black beach rocks at Big Sur, then carried it up the hill to Audrey, lying horizontal on the hiking trail, eyes closed to the afternoon's fleeting bits of sun as it descended into that great blue-gray body of water to our right. I had been searching for something to give to her since we met the night before. I understood neither the origin nor meaning of this desire, but I knew I wanted to watch a gift pass from my hands to hers, and I wanted to see her response. On the way down the hill I'd found a patch of wildflowers and picked a few of varying lengths into what I thought looked like a charming little bouquet. Then I spotted the starfish and dropped the flowers.

Audrey sat up and made an awning over her eyes. With her other hand she reached to take what I was offering.

“What a beautiful gift,” she said. And smiled, wide, surprised, lovely. “Thank you.”

The night before, we'd met while sitting in a circle with others who had signed up for the school's optional Orientation Ad venture. She sat at roughly my ten o'clock. Later it became clear that neither of us had wanted or planned to participate in “OA” (two letters proffered with near-cultish adoration, as if the trip's acronymity alone was confirmation of our new school's pure awesomeness and desert of future annual-fund donation) but had each inadvertently signed up in the whirlwind of prematriculation paperwork. Our meeting, then, was the result of an elaborate system of coincidence and what I would come to recognize