Where the HEART IS

A BEST FRIEND gets you at a CELLULAR LEVEL, in a way that no one else can. MIRA JACOB explores the GRIEF that overtook her when hers MOVED AWAY after living in the SAME CITY for 22 years.

I knew from my best friend’s right eyebrow that something was wrong. You know how that is? How you can know a person’s face so well that a brow scrunch is a bullhorn to your soul? We need to talk, Alison’s was saying, and I slid into high alert, ready to slay childhood demons or smack-talk her enemies or grapple with the generational trauma of lowrise jeans making a comeback.

“You okay?” I asked. It was a dumb question. When was the last time anyone on planet Earth had really been okay? Fifteen months of the pandemic had tucked us so deeply inside our own heads that just leaving our apartments meant slipping into a waking dream. Everything looked familiar but also eerily different: storefronts taped up, sidewalks empty, public gathering spaces sealed from use. Behind us in Prospect Park, Brooklyn kids played baseball because everyone was trying to pretend things were getting back to normal. Behind them, parents sat masked on the sidelines because nothing was. Alison and I stood a baby hippo’s distance apart because that was what you did that summer when you really loved someone. You gave her space.

“I think we are moving,” she said. I nodded. My go-to when I’m caught off guard is to pretend I’ve already gotten the entire itinerary for life. But my gut sank. Alison and I had lived six blocks away for 12 years and six subway stops away for the 10 years before that.That’s 22 years of navigating bad bosses, life choices, weird Pap smears, and possible haircuts. Twenty-two years of grabbing minutes here and hours there, of bumping into each other by accident, and running for each other when things got bad. Moving sounded bad. Moving sounded like at least 10 subway stops.