Problems ((new)) — Ani Has

The real trouble was that Ani’s problems were not separate. They nested inside one another like Russian dolls. The sink reminded her of the leaky faucet in her childhood home, which her father had promised to fix before he left. The job reminded her that she had once wanted to be a poet, or a gardener, or anything that involved creating instead of cleaning. Her mother’s drifting mind reminded her that soon there would be no one left who remembered the sound of her father’s laugh. And the unnamed thing in her chest—the hibernating animal—reminded her that she had spent thirty-seven years becoming a person who was useful, reliable, and almost entirely absent from her own life.

One night, at 2:17 AM, Ani lay awake listening to the refrigerator hum. The sink was silent, but she could feel it waiting. On her nightstand, her phone buzzed—a wrong number, someone looking for a man named Dave. She did not know any Dave. But for one wild, irrational second, she considered texting back: Dave can’t come to the phone. Dave has problems too. But Dave probably fixed his sink. ani has problems

Third, and most quietly, there was the problem of her mother. Her mother did not have dementia, not officially. What she had was a gentle, drifting absence—a tendency to call Ani by her dead aunt’s name, to leave the stove on overnight, to ask the same question (“Do you still have that little cat?”) four times in twenty minutes. Ani did not have a cat. She had never had a cat. But every time she corrected her mother, she felt like she was erasing something precious. So she had started saying, “Yes, Mom. Mittens is fine.” Mittens was a lie. But the lie was kinder than the truth. And that, Ani thought, was its own kind of problem. The real trouble was that Ani’s problems were not separate

The sink kept whining. Her mother would call at noon and ask about the cat. Greg would wear salmon. The animal in her chest would stir and scratch. The job reminded her that she had once

But Ani had written something true. And for today, that was enough.

In the morning, Ani got up, made coffee while the sink whined, and opened her laptop. She did not harmonize any data. Instead, she typed a single sentence into a new document: I am not a problem to be solved. Then she stared at the words until they blurred.

First, there was the matter of the sink. The kitchen faucet had developed a low, mournful whine whenever she ran hot water. It wasn't broken enough to call a plumber (what would she say? “It sounds sad?”), but it was broken enough to make her flinch every morning as she filled her kettle. The whine felt like an accusation: You live alone. You eat over the sink. You haven't bought new dish soap in three weeks. Ani had problems, and the sink was their official spokesperson.