Anna’s home, an elegant tree house of warm smells and subtle touches. High polish on the floors. A miniature mirror winking above a kitchen cabinet. A tapestry pinched into a playful tent, hovering over an overstuffed chair in the corner. Bright, crisp notes from the chimes outside her window, calculating the arithmetic of evening winds with their song. Hints of lemon and grease and honey, boiling liquids and roasted root vegetables, covered, then later, uncovered, browned, crisped, burned by accident, scraped and replaced with brand-new turnips and radishes and sprouts, no problem, squat and fat and fresh from the fridge. Heirloom tomatoes on the cutting board and heirloom treasures on the mantle. The entire scene shines like the contents of an animated sparkle on the edge of some glinting, watery eye. She holds me in her cashmere arms and hugs me to her chest, all the way into her nest, uses the hug as a pulley to reel me into her house.

“This house,” says Anna, cashmere arms open wide. “My house. I own this house.”

My entire face is trembling, and there is little I can do to stop it. Oh, Anna, is what I mean to say.

“Do you want a pamphlet?” is all I can manage.

She looks bewildered.

“Yes, of course,” she says politely.

She reaches out, but I don’t let her touch it with her hands, her little cream-tipped nails and her delicate rings and the gold watch that still fits her wrist after all these years.

“Here, for you,” I say, and I put the pamphlet in her pamphlet basket near the door. She has baskets in every shape, stacked in every size, for just about every type of storage consideration. She looks at my filthy, stolen boots, and I understand I’m meant to remove them, place them in a basket. They slide off easily now, finally broken in.

“Can I fetch you a glass of water?” Anna asks. None of the things we used to do make sense anymore, but I guess we both still drink water. We drink some water side by side, our bodies full of fluids, of blood and acid and methods of hydration, caffeination, intoxication. Would I like to sit down, Anna wants to know. “Sure,” I say, and now we’re two women, formerly two girls, sitting down. I realize we’ve never before been under a roof, indoors, inside, together. Always sitting in the middle of the road, in a driveway, on a path, on pavement connected to streets, to highways, to interstates for which to someday travel.

“It’s been a long, long time,” Anna says.

“Has it?”

“Of course it has. But I’d recognize you anywhere.”

“Same.”

“That forehead!” she says, and I don’t know what she means. She pauses for a sip of water, and the silence is excruciating. Then, “Are you here on vacation? Are you visiting someone special?”

“I’m looking for my next placement. What about you?”

“I live here,” she says, gesturing to the room, confused. “Remember?”

“I mean, for your current placement.”

“No. I don’t do placements. I don’t do that anymore.”

“Oh?”

“I hopped from that old delivery truck to another delivery truck and to a bus and to a train across the country, and when I came back, I came back with the steadiness. A real job. A dream job!” She cups her chin in her hands and squeezes her eyes shut, a princess with a granted wish.

“A permanent job?”

“Yeah,” and she sounds disappointed by my lack of excitement. “Like, you know, a regular job.” She lobs the word regular in the manner of an eye roll.

I tuck my feet up onto the couch and under my thighs, but is that too informal? The holes in my socks are showing, and I slowly slide my feet back to the floor.

“What does it feel like?” I ask, trying not to cry. “The steadiness?”

“Oh, you know, it’s hard to describe. Maybe like a rolling pin running over my shins? No, that’s not right. Maybe like a Slinky wrapped around my hand? No, not that either. It’s really different for everyone. Well, not everyone.”

“Not everyone,” I say, and it’s like stretching open a sealed scar.

“I didn’t mean it like that!” she cries. “Don’t worry. When you know, you just know!”

I hope she won’t say the next thing, but she says it anyway.

“Sometimes these things happen when you’re not looking for them.” Anna smiles.

“Where do you work?” I ask, trying to change the subject, barely breathing. “Where is your regular job?”

“At the bank,” Anna says, wrapping herself in a cashmere throw. She is cashmere upon cashmere.

“Which one?”

“They make it so confusing,” she says, “but between you and me, it’s really all the same bank. Just one bank. All those robberies barely make a dent.”

I can still picture Laurette slicing and shoving, locking the safe, blood pooling on the floor.

“Are you by any chance ever assigned to clean the bank?” I ask.

“Oh my god, you’re so funny,” Anna says, and she gulps her water like it’s something stiffer. “I don’t ever have to clean anything, not even my own house.”

“Right.”

“We need to treat ourselves kindly, you know!” Anna declares. “Especially right now, with all the bombings and the fugitives. And I heard something about a wild beast, like a dragon? What even is this life?” She shakes her head, then laughs. A real, happy laugh.

My whole body starts to shake, but am I sad? Am I cold? Am I safe? Am I scared?

“You’re practically quaking!” Anna says, and she wraps me in the other end of her cashmere throw, really just a fringed corner. We sit like this for a moment, both comfortable and not, Anna’s mouth curved into an expression I can’t decipher. When we were younger, every door was a secret door. Every mollusk perhaps contained a pearl. We could anticipate rooms hidden behind other rooms, or meaty carcasses buried under mounds of soil. We wandered every surface with amazed suspicion. Now, Anna scoops up all the mystery for herself, tossing it over her shoulders like an oversized sweater. I surmise this much: Getting older is the difference between solving mysteries and studying to become one.

A round voice bounces down the stairs, inaudible but jolly. Anna has apparently understood the voice, because she yells, “Just a minute, babe!” Her posture changes, shoulders popping, head bobbing.

“We were about to watch a movie,” she says, and for the first time I notice the two glasses, two plates. The pair of napkins. Two remote controls and two more on a shelf, and another remote in a ceramic dish.

“So many remotes.”

“I know. We always lose track of which does what. I can never change the volume!” She tucks her feet up under her thighs, and I feel I’ve been invited to do the same. She leans into the couch with a long yawn, and I think, Is Anna bored?

“You should stay,” Anna says with a pout, her eyes half closed. But the word stay has two syllables in her mouth—stay-ee—and I recognize that second syllable. It’s the extra square foot, the exit where I’m supposed to see myself out.

“No, no, I really shouldn’t.”

“But wouldn’t you like to join us? Wouldn’t you like to stay-ee? You’ve only just arrived.”

“I’ve seen this one already. On an enormous screen.” I point at the television. The film is paused on a frame from the opening credits, which I recognize from the pirate captain’s movie retrospective. “I’ve seen it big projector–style,” I say.

“Fun! Like an outdoor movie in the park?”

“Yes, like an outdoor movie in the park.”

“Cool. But we can watch something else. We can watch anything. Or nothing. Stay-ee!”

“OK. OK, maybe I will.”

Satisfied, Anna tucks her cashmere sleeves into a cashmere cardigan under the cashmere blanket. Cashmere upon cashmere upon cashmere, a cocoon: She softens herself daily, in preparation for receiving love. Then she stretches out her arms and grabs me by the shoulders, reaching forward in parallel lines. At first I take it as a gesture of affection. But on further consideration, it’s really an ambiguous pose, isn’t it, the shoulder bridge, holding onto someone and also holding someone at bay, and she backs away into the kitchen, like a mammal running scared, to retrieve a board of cheese.

The round voice bouncing down the stairs once again. I think I hear the name Anna, or some variation on that theme.

“I need to go up to the bedroom for a second,” she says, a cube of cheese on her tongue. “You’re fine for a minute? It won’t be long.”

“Of course, Anna,” I say.

“I can’t believe you’re really here,” she says, and I know the sentiment is genuine. She looks for a cheese knife on the counter. She opens a drawer next to the sink, then closes the drawer, then opens it again and closes it once more, opens it, closes it. She breathes out in a long, steady breath. “Old habits.” She shrugs and opens the drawer one more time. She climbs the stairs in long strides.

I pause for a beat, then I collect my shoes and leave. A ghost again set free.

It’s not for me, this kind of moment. Something inside me can’t be contained by the shape of her house, her life. Something about me does not and will not fit. I feel myself protruding like a broken bone, breaking through the skin. Perhaps it’s a matter of qualifications, the way they both certify and prohibit, the way I find the fullness of my life constantly halved, constantly qualified. Could I someday be qualified for happiness, for steadiness?

I wander the streets until crepuscular notions settle over the silent town, a single moonbeam gifting me my route back through the city.

The last time I see Anna, I see her in a dream. The last time you see someone is never the last time you see them. The empty space a person leaves behind retains heat; a retina will preserve a face for later. In the dream, Anna wanders toward me through a park, wearing a cashmere jumpsuit. Her eyes are fixed on mine, but as she approaches, I notice they’re looking past, through, beyond. I notice it isn’t even Anna at all.

“Anna?”

“Anna to you too,” she says, and she continues walking.

“Do you know that girl?” the Chairman of the Board asks. My necklace burns even in sleep, and he strolls beside me.

“Not anymore,” I say, and we link arms and leap into a conference call, holding steady on the line.