“I’ll call you Tre.”

There’s a little plaque, welded into the base of #273 with its number and a company name. I look up and up at the monstrous pinwheel. I put my hand against its trunk and feel it hum.

Two plus seven is nine plus three is twelve and one plus two is three. Tre. Like the youngest in a line of oil heirs. Only it’s wind power and has no parent. “Hmm.” But a burden. It has a burden, just like the disappointing James or Howard or Colin that can’t even be called his own name because his namesakes live and glower down. I nod at Tre.

I walk back to my car, still running and perched on the gravel shoulder.

***

I often think I’m a piano player but moving words and punctuation around. Pencil to paper, I see the letters and periods and the misused ellipses as keys and I’m playing them, finding the rhythm that the original composer missed. Long after I put the paper away for the day, the tunes still putter around my head.

I’ve told Frank about the music, but I’m hesitant to tell him about Tre. I’ve been seeing Frank for years, now every other week. Sometimes every third week, but then I start losing track of things. So usually every other week.    

He’s asking me to breathe through some meditation. I can tell I’m not breathing right. I focus and focus. We move into talking about Goals. I made some up recently to work on. Not like they’re fake goals. I’m just not sure I’m into them. But I need to be Engaged with the Work for my insurance to keep shelling out.

We spend so much time on Goals. Next time, I’ll bring up Tre.

***

“Eliza? Hey there – how are you?” The woman’s face is friendly and familiar and after a dazed minute, I say hello back.

“I’m so sorry, I was off in my own little world.”

“We missed you at brunch last week – I think Hazel is hosting next month, usual time. I’m sure there’s an email somewhere.” The woman’s mouth is exquisitely lined and lipsticked. I’m watching her lips so closely that there’s another pause before I realize I haven’t said anything back, again.

“Oh – yes, thanks – I did see that.” I hadn’t.

The woman’s brow furrows slightly, struggling against the pull of Botox, maybe, and her well-mascara’d lashes flutter over a worried look. “Listen, if you ever want to just grab coffee or something, I’d love an excuse to drop the kids off with my mom for a few hours. What do you think?”

“I’ve got a deadline next week. The week after?” I suggest. Far enough away to seem plausible without committing.  

She’s relieved. “Great! I’ll text you!” We half-hug and I’m alone again.

“Do you ever feel lonely?” This is a question on some form Frank has me fill out. Sometimes I say yes. Sometimes no. I feel the same all the time, regardless. Is it loneliness I feel? Or the persistence of living? I think of this as the woman, this friend who I cannot name, walks purposefully on with her well-stocked grocery cart. My cart: a twelve-pack of store-brand seltzer, plain; a rotisserie chicken; a can of Ro-tel, spicy; Kona coffee beans; half and half; and fancy granola from the bulk section.

I hate food.

***

I’ve made a picnic and park carefully behind mile marker 171. I make my way over to Tre and set up. There’s a bit of a ditch under the shoulder of the road so while I am near the highway, I’m not particularly visible. At least I don’t think so.

Also, picnic is an overstatement. I have a can of wine and a camp chair. Tre doesn’t mind.

I sit next to Tre facing the bulk of the windmill farm. It spans miles. Each turbine standing almost 300 feet tall, a trio of arms each over 100-feet long. I try to find patterns in the movement, but they angle so scientifically it seems haphazard. There’s so little synchronicity in this sea of windmills. I start to cry; it seems so cruel to set up a community that cannot be together in time.

***

Allowing myself to cry is a Goal so without even planning to, I start sharing with Frank about Tre and I know it is a Bad Idea as soon as I see Frank click his pen and make a couple of notes. I’m very good at overthinking. Frank knows this so he tries to work around it, but I’ve been overthinking longer than Frank has been therapeutic so Fuck You Frank! Changing direction, I mention running into Beth at the store. Her name is not Beth, but I don’t know what it is, and I generally refer to women whose names I cannot remember as Beth. This makes it seem like I have a Very Good Friend named Beth. Working on my friendships is also a Goal so this seems a good distraction.

Frank asks if I want to come in next week.

Shit.

“Two weeks is fine.” I reply. We set the usual time and day.

“If you want to come in earlier, though, I’ve got a space on Thursday next week, too. Just let me know.” Frank pretends he’s not pushing.

I nod and leave.

***

My mother-in-law calls this afternoon (can she be a mother-in-law still?). She’s lovely, though. I think she writes a note in her calendar to call me. It seems random, but it is so regular that even if there’s not a discernible pattern, it is not at all random. I can get her to talking fairly easily so I just have to pay attention for Questions to Ask as opposed to Things to Say, which is my preferred form of conversation.

“We’d love to see you soon, honey,” she tells me as the call winds down.

“Work’s been so busy, but maybe I can take a weekend soon.” This placates her and we hang up. I’m parked in front of the townie liquor store, which I save for midweek stops so my bougie liquor store owner doesn’t realize I also drink the cheap stuff. I go in and pick up some more cans of wine, just in case.

***

If you stand at mile marker 172, you cannot clearly make out which windmill is Tre. I learned this the hard way because I couldn’t park at 171 today and it seemed prudent to park a full mile up rather than right next to the highway patrolman searching the brown man’s trunk at 171. I’ve got my camp chair strapped over my shoulder and a can of wine in hand when a man in a security uniform calls to me.

“You look lost there, ma’am. Can I help you?”

I refrain from laughing.

***

I need something to tell Frank about so we won’t have to discuss Tre so I try to find out about the Hazel Brunch, a part of me hoping that it’s already happened. But it hasn’t happened yet. An email proclaims that brunch is tomorrow, Sunday at 11. I go through the list of email addresses to freshen up my name recall, and before I know it, I am googling people, and this has become a Project.

It’s strange, I imagine, to be googling people that are your friends. At one time, I knew all the details. Who went with who; how so and so came into the circle; what everyone did; who was divorced; who couldn’t have kids; whose kids were terrors; what all the children’s names and ages and extracurriculars were. It’s also strange, I imagine, to know that these women care for me but not really know how I feel about them. It’s not like anyone did or didn’t do something. In fact, by all accounts, they’ve been incredible.

I sometimes think about my life, my before life, and while I have memories that come and go, it doesn’t seem possible that that life and this one are for one person.

As I’m labeling my houseplants with post-it notes featuring different names, positioning each plant at a different place setting around my table, and practicing hellos and smiling, I almost give up on this Project. It’s a lot. How do you return?

But the fear of having to explain my relationship with Tre to Frank is enough to keep me going.

Snake plant Sara; philodendron Lila; sansevieria Vicki; hoya Hazel; and ficus Fiona (who google confirmed was the woman who reminded me about Hazel’s brunch at the store!). Mental note: deadline extended on Work Project thus still not available for coffee should ficus Fiona bring it up.

Do I even really have a relationship with Tre? Snake plant Sara is skeptical. But sansevieria Vicki seems more contemplative. Even if I do, or don’t, I still don’t want to talk about it with Frank so brunch at hoya Hazel’s is happening tomorrow.

***

“Do you ever just watch yourself and wonder if people even know how hard it is for you to be?” Tre’s hum seems a little quieter this afternoon. The air is very still. I’ve got my chair next to Tre facing the little berm that maybe shields me from the road, nervous since the security guard sighting.

I’ve been replaying brunch. I managed to not call anyone by their plant names. Clearly a success, then. And I have been listening to the new Taylor Swift and I did read the morning paper, so I had some things to say. Plus, it was pretty easy to know when to laugh or make concerned faces. Ficus Fiona is very expressive. (Maybe no on the Botox.)

They did hug me a lot. I suppose I used to hug people more. I mean, it’d be hard to hug people less than now. “I don’t think I’m fragile.” I managed to stay the whole time, leaving only when sansevieria Vicki packed up to go to her daughter’s soccer game.   

I don’t think I’m not fragile though, either. I lean over to touch Tre’s trunk.

***

The sky winks green at me this morning. I’ll see Frank today to make my case for sanity. It’s really a lot to put on another person, this task of evaluation. Assessing my grip on reality from another seat without him knowing what I hand over every time I walk through the door.

There’s no one else checking in. No one else looking at his work. Just me, aligned both with him and against him. It’s unfair, I tell Tre this morning. I still choose both sides as I pull up to Frank’s office.

***

I sparkle upon arrival at Frank’s office, careful not to over-shine. We joke familiarly and I launch into recounting brunch. I know I’m not convincing, I can feel it.

I’m saying too many numbers. Too many connections. Too much and more. I hear math come out: two plus seven is nine plus three is twelve and how did I get here? What am I doing? “What does it even mean?” And I stop talking, staring down, water filling that place behind my eyes.

“Tell me where your body is feeling anything right now.” Frank’s words sound far off. Removed.

I close my eyes, searching. I swallow hard, clutching my throat. “Here,” I choke out.

“Then breathe right there. Just right there.”

The pain is exquisite, light bursts behind my lids. And I see them there. James carrying Colin, looking just like they did. Howard underfoot. All of them. Together.

I vomit. We schedule again for the end of the week.

***

At three o’clock that one afternoon, I worked away. Moving words this way and that, completely caught up in the music of it all. My phone buzzed, lighting up the office with what I presumed were memes and gifs and not-so-urgent queries into the most attractive but still funny and attainable celebrity or what to do with so many tomatoes out of the summer garden. Then the phone rang.

***

Tonight, the security guard brings his chair. I tense when I realize I’m not alone with Tre. “Got another one?” he asks, smile slight, gray hair curling against his collar.

I bite my lip and hand him a can. “It’s actually pretty decent.”

We watch the lightning bugs twinkle about. Wispy clouds shadow the field’s moonglow.  

“Ma’am, I think there’s a story here,” he says. “But no hurry.” He takes a gulp, leans back, and closes his eyes. Tre hums along beside us.

– Julia Gaughan