The Best Friend

You are the person I don't clean the house for. This is the highest compliment I know. You have seen the laundry pile I call a chair. You have eaten the meal I built from whatever was expiring and said: this is great, with the specific sincerity of someone who knows that today's meal is not the point. We don't talk every day. Sometimes a month goes by and I forget to feel guilty because you've made it safe to disappear and come back without explaining where I went. When my life fell apart— the year we don't name, the one with the lawyers and the terrible apartment and the feeling that the ceiling was the most interesting thing in any room— you drove over with a box of terrible wine and a deck of cards and didn't ask me how I was. You just dealt. That's it. That's the whole story. You just dealt and I picked up my hand and we played until midnight and I didn't think about the ceiling once. The best people in your life are not the ones who make it better. They're the ones who sit with you while it isn't.