csat there on that train and did not move a muscle. He counted the minutes. He didn't mean to. It just happened.
The way your eyes count ceiling tiles when you can't sleep. The way your brain measures silence when silence has become unfamiliar. 6 minutes 12 20 32 32 minutes. He knew later that the number would stay with him. Not because of what it meant in any grand romantic sense, but because it was 32 minutes where Marcus Hayes didn't have to be strong for anyone, didn't have to fix anything, didn't have to be the answer to someone's problem.
He just had to be there, and that was enough. That was, in fact, more than he'd had in years. The train slowed as it approached Backbay Station. The woman beside him stirred. He watched her come back to consciousness.
The small flutter of her eyelashes, the slight tension returning to her shoulders, the moment where disorientation gave way to recognition, and then recognition gave way to horror. She sat up fast. Her hand went to her mouth. Oh my god. Her voice was hushed, mortified.
I am so sorry. I did not. I wasn't trying to. I'm sorry. Hey, Marcus kept his voice low and even.
It's okay. It's really not. I just She ran a hand over her face. I haven't slept properly in like 2 weeks and I just You didn't drool, Marcus said. She stopped, blinked, and then despite herself, she let out a short surprised laugh.
That's your bar, she said. That's my bar, he said. She shook her head, but some of the horror had dissolved from her face. She picked up her bag, got to her feet as the train pulled into the station. She was already moving toward the the door when she stopped.
She turned around and she looked at him. really looked at him the way people rarely do on public transportation. The way that makes you feel suddenly visible in a way you'd forgotten you could be. I'm Emily, she said. Marcus, she nodded once like she was filing it somewhere. Marcus, she said it back to him.
Then she started walking again. He thought that was it. The door was almost closed. And then just before it did, she turned one more time and she said in a voice low enough that he almost wasn't sure he'd heard it correctly. I wasn't sleeping.
The doors closed. The train pulled away. And market sat tin in his seat. The warmth on his shoulder already fading with those three words sitting in his chest like something he didn't know what to do with. I wasn't sleeping.
What did that mean? He turned it over for the rest of the commute. He turned it over while he changed into his work uniform. He turned it over during his first call of the day, a faulty relay switch on the orange line, and his second and his third. He was turning it over at 11:45 a.m. when his foreman, a big Haitian man named Dearoo, who had known Marcus for 9 years, handed him a coffee and said, "Where are you right now?" "Because you are not here." Marcus looked up.
"I'm here. You are not here. You've redone that junction box three times. It was right the first time. Marcus looked down at the junction box.
It had been right the first time. He put down his tools. Dev, he said. If a woman tells you she wasn't sleeping, what does that mean? Dero stared at him for a long moment.
Depends, he said. Was she sleeping? She was definitely sleeping. For how long? 32 minutes.
Another long pause. Marcus Daru said slowly. Who is this woman? a co-orker. We never really talked before today. Devou picked up his own coffee, took a slow sip, and she told you she wasn't sleeping after sleeping on you for 32 minutes.
Yeah, and you're thinking about it at 11:45 a.m. I'm not thinking about it. I'm just You're thinking about it. Devo set down his cup. I'll tell you what it means. It means she wants you to think about it.
That's what it means. Marcus said nothing. How long has it been? Devo said carefully. Since a woman made you think about something, Marcus didn't answer that either.
But they both already knew. 3 years, 2 months, and 17 days. That was how long it had been since Renee died. Ovarian cancer. Diagnosed in April.
Gone by August. 4 months. That was all the time the disease had given them. 4 months to go from it's probably nothing to we need to talk about paliotative care. four months of hospitals and treatments and side effects and Amara being 5 years old and not understanding why mommy was always so tired and Marcus being 31 years old and not understanding how the universe could be this brutal. He didn't talk about Renee, not at work, not with neighbors, not even much with Mrs. Patterson who had known them as a couple who had been at the funeral and held Amara while Marcus stood at the graveside and tried to remember how to breathe.
He kept Renee private, protected, like she was something that could be worn down by too much handling. He kept a photograph of her on the nightstand, just one. Her laughing at something off camera, her natural hair out, her eyes crinkled at the corners. Amara had the same eyes. He saw Renee every morning in his daughter's face, and he didn't know if that made it easier or harder, and he'd stopped trying to figure it out.