“It wasn’t always like this, was it?,” Aida said, “Not this bad. Right? Something happened. So: What happened?”

“If I could lay it all out,” she said. “I would love to be able to lay it all out.” She palmed the glass of iced tea, drew a line in the condensation. “There are only gaps and points of confusion and missed moments and opportunities and I can’t identify them all. What is important, what doesn’t matter? What have I confused as being one when it is the other?,” she said, “I don’t know.”

She was grateful Aida was an analyst. In comparison to some of Aida’s clients —  the schizophrenics maybe?— she might even reside on the spectrum of well-adjusted. Also: Aida was content with confusion and shades of black. The tints. Something she very much admired.

“If only I knew.” She continued. “I don’t know which things fall into which category; what is cause, what is effect, what just happens. It isn’t so clear. Honestly, I wonder if there is any ‘Why’ at all. Do you think there is always a ‘Why’?” She asked Aida. “Because if there isn’t a Why, she worried: How will I ever know what to do?”

Aida laughed, shifted in her patio chair. “As an analyst, I believe there’s a ‘Why.’ Or a possibility for one, at least.”

Aida motioned for her cat, Elektra, who was rolling on the grass in the sun. “Gaps and points of confusion and missed moments and opportunities — It’s all ‘Why’ Right?” Aida said, picking up Elektra’s toy from the ground. “But yeah, identifying the parts of ‘Why?’  Rough.”

“I wonder how Mark feels,” Aida added, swinging the feather-on-a-string in front of Elektra, so she would bat at it.