Page 65 of Make Room for Love

“Do you really still think it’s up to you to judge the quality of whoever I decide to marry? This is the apology you’ve been working up to?”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Hot fear rose in Isabel’s chest. Whathadshe meant? “I didn’t?—”

“You know what? Forget it. This isn’t about Kevin. If you don’t like him, fine. That’s your right. You don’t have to condescend to me and pretend you didn’t mean what you said. I’m marrying him whether you like it or not.” For a moment, Grace’s tone sounded uncannily like an echo of Isabel herself. “This isn’t really about that. Ever since Alexa—” Grace’s voice quavered. “You’ve been acting like you know what’s best for me, and you’ve been trying to do everything for everyone, like if you do enough, it’ll make up for Alexa being gone?—”

“I don’t think that.” Isabel was shaken. She’d once thought of Grace as her other best friend. But now they were both using whatever closeness they’d had to twist the knife. “Nothing I could do would make up for that. I know nothing’s going to bring her back. I don’t know why you said that.”

“I’m saying it because it’s true, and you need to hear it. Who else is going to tell you?”

Isabel looked around. “Can you be quiet? You’re going to disturb?—”

“Can you stop being the perfect daughter for one fucking second?” In the ensuing silence, even Grace seemed stunned by what she’d said. “I get it, okay? You pay for our parents’ house. You take care of them. And you want to be the perfect older sister, treating me like I’m still the same age I was when Alexa died, like I’m still barely out of college as opposed to being an adult with a job and a fiancé. And you thought you just wanted the best for me when you told me how much you looked down on my fiancé the day I told you about my engagement. The best thing that had happened to me since—” Grace wiped her eyes, but she looked defiant. “Did it ever occur to you that Kevin feels awkward around you because you treat him like he’s an annoying toddler every time he comes over? Did you ever even put in any effort? Just because he wasn’t doing whatyoudid when you were twenty-four?—”

“That’s not what this is about. This has nothing to do with me,” Isabel said, with dawning horror that Grace had landed a hit. “I don’t care if Kevin is awkward. I care if he’s pulling his weight.” This wasn’t the path she wanted to go down, rehashing their argument from months ago, but she didn’t know how to stop. “I want him to be a good partner for you. I don’t want you to be tied down to someone who isn’t. That was what I meant.”

“A good partner?” Grace laughed humorlessly. “You would know all about that, right?”

Isabel stiffened. Pain and shame seared her. She stood up and left the kitchen without a word.

The doorto her bedroom opened and the light turned on. “Oh!” Mira said. “You scared me. I didn’t know you were back. I was just looking for my reading glasses. Are you okay?”

Mira had a habit of falling asleep in bed while reading, at which point Isabel would gently take her reading glasses off herface, set them on the nightstand, and let her sleep. The tender memory only made Isabel more afraid. Maybe none of this would last.

She couldn’t bring herself either to say no or to lie. She tucked her knees closer to her head and said nothing at all.

“Oh, no,” Mira said. She sat down on the bed next to Isabel and put an arm around her.

But Mira might as well have been a mile away. What separated them was a growing chasm of fear. Isabel didn’t deserve someone so good, and Mira deserved better, and eventually Mira would find that out for herself.

Mira’s warmth seeped into her. Isabel was calming down, despite herself. “I’m so sorry, Isabel. Do you want to tell me about it?” Mira said, so unbearably good to her even now.

Isabel shook her head. “Not now,” she managed to say.

“Take all the time you need,” Mira said. Isabel’s dread returned. How much time would she have?

29

“The administration has givenus no choice,” said Patrick, Mira’s counterpart in the history department, more loudly than was necessary. Most of the rest of the executive committee murmured or nodded agreement.

The university had been stepping up its tactics. Every day there were new emails, fliers, and so-called information sessions. The pay raise was evidence that the administration cared about the grad students, so they claimed. Money was tight, and there was no room for health insurance or parental leave or housing in the budget, so there was nothing more the union could do for anyone. If the grad students tried to unionize, they’d waste their money on dues and get nowhere. That was the way of things, and the grad students ought to shut up and be grateful.

The worst part was that it was working. They were losing support and enthusiasm, and Mira couldn’t blame anyone for it. The grad students were all exhausted, and the administration had money and time on their side and could spend endless resources campaigning against them.

“I agree that we don’t have much of a choice,” Shreya said, at a normal volume, clearly chagrined to be agreeing with Patrick.“The closer we get to the scheduled election, the worse things look?—”

“Right,” Patrick said. “I’ve been saying, we can’t even trust our data about who’s committed to voting yes anymore. People have changed their minds. I?—”

“—and we don’t have time to talk to everyone and convince them that the university’s lying to them,” Shreya continued. “Let’s get started on filing an unfair labor practice complaint as soon as possible, get the administration to stop, and then maybe we’ll be on a more even playing field. That’s better than taking the chance of losing the election entirely.”

“But that’s going to postpone the election indefinitely,” someone else said.

“It’ll probably be a few months,” Patrick said. “If we have the election now and lose, it’ll take years to try again.”

They had been going in circles for the last two weeks, their meetings running over time even more than usual. Shreya sometimes complained to Mira that this was the biggest group project of their lives, with hundreds of flaky, difficult group members, and Mira saw her point.

Mira hadn’t said anything so far. She was the newest committee member, and she’d mostly limited herself to giving updates in these meetings. Everyone else knew better than her—didn’t they?

The room was leaning reluctantly toward postponing the election. Maybe they were right, no matter how much Mira hated the idea. Disagreeing with Shreya felt wrong. But the idea of delaying everything for months, maybe longer, was unbearable.

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