You're Not You by Michelle Wildgen Page A

showed across her nose. After a while she began to talk, and I paused and watched her so I could understand.
    “I kind of envy you,” she admitted sheepishly. “I’m too old for itnow anyway, but I miss just going out to a bunch of places, having a drink, and going to the next.” I tried to imagine a night out with the Kate of ten years ago, knocking back shots and shouting in noisy bars, and for a second something plummeted in me. I had never been very good at facing up to the fact that some things were unfixable.
    Her eyebrows were a little mussed from when I’d taken off the book turner, and I smoothed them, one at a time, with my fingertip.
    “I don’t know if it’s as fun as you’re imagining,” I said.
     
    I FELT A LOT better by the time we reached the market. The stands circled the grounds of the state capitol, and people joined the throng moving counterclockwise along the sidewalk, ducking in and out of the horde to stop at the vendors. The tables were piled with food: orange carrots with plumes of thready green leaves; yellow, purple, and green beans; early scarlet strawberries piled in wooden boxes; blocks of white cheese and butter. I’d catch the scent of basil from one table, smoked trout from the next. I leaned over a stack of spinach and realized I could still smell the dirt on the roots.
    We kept near the lawn, so that Kate could pause her chair easily while I darted across to the tables. My arms were weighed down with plastic bags of radishes, strawberries, and bundles of skinny, blushing rhubarb stalks, fresh herbs, soft-skinned garlic. After a while I gave in to the slowness of the crowd and it was kind of fun. For one thing, it wasn’t my money, so if she pointed me toward a stand for goat cheese in herbed olive oil or venison sausage, I never had to count the bills in my pocket. I looked over quarts of strawberries much more carefully than I ever would have for myself. At home I usually ate them standing over the trash can and spitting any bad parts out, but now it seemed extremely important that each berry be perfect.
    The other perk was the samples, which I made it my business to research. Cheese, sausage, sweet peas, smoked fish. At a stand that sold beeswax candles, I took a spoonful of honey and then glanced over my shoulder at her. My constant nibbling was rude, I realized, and I held up the plastic spoon to her. She shook her head, but she was smiling.
    Halfway around the capitol Kate slowed her chair and nodded towarda little café. There was nothing on the list that corresponded so I bent down to see what she wanted.
    “Pastry,” she said. “You really need one.”
    I watched her from across the street as I waited in line for a chocolate croissant. I felt I shouldn’t look away from her, as though she were a toddler in a stroller. It was probably safe. No one was going to harass her, and I had her purse with all the money in it. She was sitting near the street, just out of range of most of the people, with big tortoiseshell sunglasses covering her eyes. She was dressed in a crisp blue shirt, a light skirt and sandals, and a silver bracelet that flashed in the sun. Her head was tilted to one side as she watched people go past. They glanced at her and then away, their body language showing that they didn’t want to stare, or else they smiled at her to show some kind of solidarity. I watched the smilers to see how they came off. I knew that’s what I would be, grinning away. Even from here they seemed a little fatuous.
    When we got back to Kate’s house it was still empty. “What’s Evan up to today?” I asked. I was getting her into her wheelchair in the driveway. I had to reach into the car, bumping my head several times and making her wince each time, and position her as when I got her out of bed: situate her legs and feet, bring her up to her feet, and then pivot.
    She blew at a wisp of hair in her eyes and I brushed it out of her face. “Just some errands,” she told