The Way People Sit When They’re Ready to Stand

Simon takes off his sneakers and sets them “toes pointing toward the exit.” At home he always took his shoes off — “not out of tidiness: footprints on the floor meant a conversation about footprints.” He sits on the very edge of the sofa — “the way people sit when they’re ready to stand up.” The sound of the television listens to the room for him: at home it meant “his father was downstairs in the armchair, and it was better not to go down.” There is no armchair. There is Jacob, who tells the screen “not that way” and laughs. “Simon slowly lowered his shoulders.”

Trauma lives not in memories but in everyday life: in how a person sets down his shoes, where he sits, what he hears in the sound of a television. Relearning happens the same way — not through conversations but through the repetition of ordinary evenings in which the familiar signal does not lead to a blow. Here, too, is the first choice: “You like it?” — “No.” The word “it’s fine” was ready, “it was always ready.” In its place — the truth, and a remote held out handle first. Simon chooses the ocean, “because in it, for sure, nobody hit anybody.” Preference is a muscle, and it is trained on small things.