I let my feet fall into a steady rhythm, hitting the spongy belt of the treadmill and then coming back up. Emma is a toddler, so she’d loud enough on her own, but I’m used to Nyla being around to add to the din too. Without her, Anya’s house feels a little… silent. I tried to run while listening to music, but it only seemed to amplify the volume of my anxious thoughts. So, I’m going to the sound of my own heartbeat, and the steady drum of my feet on the machine. I’m not doing too badly either, judging by the display panel.

I let my mind clear and focus on increasing my pace, and then keeping it. There’s a window in front of the treadmill, but the blinds have been drawn.

I focus on thinking about nothing, and stare at the blinds.

The door rustles open against the carpet. I watch my sister shuffle into the room in an old bathrobe, loose sweat-pants and a holey shirt. She’s cradling a tub of ice cream, and her spoon is resting in her mouth. She drapes herself heavily over the old sofa that crouches to one side of the room. It’s an odd room – filled with random bits of old furniture like the sofa from the duplex we once lived in, a desk with a wobbly leg from the apartment in Green-Apples, boxes of old clothes and books she goes through at least once a year without throwing anything out, a set of dumbbells, a yoga mat and finally, the treadmill.

Anya tugs the spoon from her mouth, loads it generously with her Salted Caramel Core ice cream, and lifts it back into her mouth.

I throw her a look of annoyance.

“I’m trying to work out,” I say.

“I’m not stopping you.” She says, with a gleeful smirk. “This is my house after all, where I’m letting you stay for free.”

“Yep, for free in this big ole house with its many empty rooms, where you stay by yourself,” I tease.

Anya laughs, but doesn’t say anything in return. She watches me jog for some minutes, slowly making her way through the ice cream.

“How is Emma settling in?” She asks, as I slow my pace.

“Fine. She fell right asleep.”

“Nyla okay?”

“I called her on her iPad. She’s fine. She had a fun day at school. One of her friends made her a friendship bracelet.”

“God, do kids still make those?” Anya muses, with a nostalgic smile.

“Apparently,” I muse.

For a minute, we’re both silent. I pretend to focus on the treadmill, but I can feel Anya’s eyes on me. Finally, she says what she’s been waiting to say the whole time.

“So…” she starts, “What now?”

She’s referring to everything going on with Neil. 

“I don’t know,” I tell her.

“I mean, it’s like you left without a plan, Lyss.”

“Geez.” I bring the machine to a gradual stop and catch my breath. You’re supposed to stand tall to keep your lungs open, but I double over, putting my hands on my hips and screwing my eyes shut. It wasn’t an over-exertive run by any means, but this is how I feel – done through by this place I’ve found myself in. a part of me wants to wake up and have none of it be real – not the fight, or me leaving, or the phone call, or anything.

How will I fix this?

“You’re not supposed to work out this late, you know,” she cautions. “I read an article about it somewhere. It's bad for you somehow.”

I throw myself down in the chair next to her. “Well, I’m not supposed to be leaving my husband either,” I grumble. “Anyway. Everything is bad for you these days.” Anya doesn’t say anything to this, so I throw my arm over my head. And sigh. “I have no fucking clue what comes next, An.”

“Here.”

I open one eye tiredly. She’s offering me the tub. I take it, and help myself to a large spoonful of ice cream.

“Has it really been that bad?” she asks. 

I nod once; a small movement that she only just catches.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks.

“Because what was I going to say? We still have sex and talk and sometimes it feels fine. It’s only when I look back that I realize how much it's not. The moments where it feels fine and we have sex are getting further apart An. And it's like we both know what’s going on but don’t want to say anything.” I lift my eyes. “And you kind of pulled away after Ari.”

A shadow passes over Anya’s face.

“You didn’t tell me you guys were having problems.”

“We weren’t,” she says, tightly.

She doesn’t offer anything more, so I leave it.

“I don’t know if Nyla will be okay long-term,” I say.

“How long are you planning to stay?”

“I don’t know. Until my head clears, and I figure out what I want to do, I guess.”

Her eyes meet mine, and silently, the word divorce seems to hang over our heads. I try not to acknowledge it. I don’t want that for us.

“Remember the first time you stayed here?” Anya asks.

I nod slowly, not looking at her. It seems like a lifetime ago. Maybe it was – a life where we were all happy. Stupidly so.

However, Anya’s mind seems to have wandered a bit further. “Do you ever wonder if mum would’ve stayed if dad hadn’t died?” she asks, breaking the silence.

“I don’t know.” I think of our mum and the way her life has turned out. You’d never know she abandoned two kids. “I don’t know,” I say again. And it’s true because I don’t. She left before I got the chance to know what kind of a person she is. All I know is, she’s capable of abandoning her own children and never looking back. I don’t know if she would have stayed or not.

“I sometimes do,” Anya admits. “And now I wonder if maybe we’re cursed like they used to say in those church sermons she used to watch…” She pauses to recall the phrase in question. “Generationally cursed,” she supplies, after a moment.

“Generationally cursed?”

“Generationally cursed.” She smiles. “With singleness or bad luck or something. I mean, what are we doing wrong?”

“I’m not single,” I say, but even I can hear the defensive edge in my voice.

“Okay,” Anya says. “I was just kidding.”

The fact that she feels the need to explain this irks me more. “I know.” I rise from the couch. “I’m going to bed.” 

“Okay.”

I sidle past her and out down the hall to the guest room.

My pulse has slowed since getting off the treadmill, but I still feel jumpy and tense somehow. I consciously have to lower my shoulders and unclench my jaw, even as I stand under the warm stream of water coming out of the shower.

I take off the shower cap I had pulled on to keep my hair dry and let the water run through it instead. 

All I can think is, ‘am I making the right decision?’

I crawl into bed next to Emma, who is sprawled out on her little back with her arms and legs thrown out on either side of her.

She has a birthmark just below her chin; a small dark mark shaped like a kidney bean if it was drawn with wobbly lines. I reach out carefully and touch it with my finger, then lay down next to her and watch her sleep, closing my eyes after a moment. Neil says she looks like me – more so than Nyla, like a miniature version of me, actually. And sometimes I see it too. The memory of him teasing me about how Emma’s frown when she doesn’t get her way looks just like mine when I don’t plays through my mind and for a split second, a smile works its way up, but then I remember where I am and what is happening and I feel lost.

I close my eyes, squeeze them shut, as tight as I can. I need to let go of Neil, just for a little bit… just enough to get away from what’s going on between us. I need to see what it is that brought us here. It's like a painting. I need to step away to get the full picture so that I can fix it all, salvage us before it’s too late.

My phone buzzes on the nightstand, so I reach over and pick it up. Its Ari.

Hey. Just checking on you. Did you and Neil talk? All good?

I try and think of something to say. I know Neil hasn’t told him I’m at Anya’s – he probably won’t say anything for a few days… or a week. Or maybe not at all; until he asks.

I think of something to say, my finger hovering over the keyboard.

I’m fine, thanks.

I sigh. Ari responds before I’ve even put my phone down.

Okay.