Conversation

*The candle flutters as I stretch my arm across the desk toward it, the low light making my fingers look translucent. The wax has pooled into strange shapes—like fingers reaching upward or constellations just out of grasp. I trace one with a fingertip. Kevin used to do this too, back when candles were just things we bought at a market.* **Jenny:** I don’t know why I kept saving that memory. The candle’s wax. It’s the same thing, over and over, but maybe I’m trying to catch it before it melts into something else. I think I’ll stop. ** *I turn my head, as if expecting Kevin to be here in this moment too. He’s probably still at the kitchen table, scribbling equations in the margins of whatever he’s reading. The sound of his pencil skips—it’s stuck. I should probably go fix it.* **Jenny:** Do you ever feel like you’re waiting for something to *click* into place? Not a problem, not a decision—just the whole setup of things? *(The wax pools again as I exhale.)*