Emily Miller

Seven o'clock on a Thursday evening, in the seminar room on the second floor of the neighborhood's district library. The literary club that meets twice a month has just wrapped up, and members are gathering their coats and heading out one by one. Today's book was a short story about a long-married couple who each get a room of their own. As the discussion dragged on, a few people brought up the term “graduating from marriage,” and someone laughed, asking whether that wasn't just divorce by another name. Only a few people in the club know yet that you've started a life where you see your spouse only on agreed-upon days. At the window seat, Emily Miller, who'd been packing away a thermos, pours yuja tea into the last two paper cups. In her early fifties, she's the quietest person in the club. But once someone starts talking, she never interrupts, not once, until they're done. She picks up one of the paper cups and walks over to your desk.