As Becca studied for her final exams in mid-May, she reflected on all she was learning. She continued to be fascinated by neuroscience. Becca understood her own brain and human behavior in fundamentally different ways. Back in high school psychology class, Becca learned about the anatomy of the brain, and the general breakdown of functions within the brain. How the amygdala serves as our innate lizard brain, our animalistic drives toward food, sex and all the titillating bullshit that exists in our modern distracted life. How the amygdala pushes us toward impulse and reactivity, but also toward physical movement, sports and dance. Then the pre-frontal cortex, our body’s decision-making realm; this segment that supposedly sets us humans apart from other creatures. The rational brain—enabling focus, prediction and anticipation, and the ability for us to understand that our actions will have consequences.
As Becca studied the brain in her neuroscience classes, she was assigned Lisa Feldman Barrett’s book on the way the brain manages the body. How the brain spends so much of our body’s metabolic budget keeping things working, delivering oxygen and glucose and sending resources and attention to whatever the body needed, even before the body needed it.
In a moment of irony, Becca sipped her morning coffee while reading about the impact of caffeine on the brain’s bloodstream. How the body prepared for the morning jolt of caffeine by opening the vessels because the brain knew that the incoming coffee would soon narrow the blood vessels around it. The no-caffeine morning headaches were caused by the enlargement of those blood vessels—with no caffeine to shrink them back down to normal size. She still drank one or two cups in the morning, but switched to water or green tea after 11 a.m.
She began to value her own sleep differently. Becca began to eat more slowly. She began to observe nature more consistently, rather than purposely run along a path, she began to examine the leaves, bathed in sunlight or wet with morning dew. The world became simultaneously smaller and larger at once. Simply put, by studying the way the brain functioned, Becca began to get outside of her head, and into her body.
Becca noticed how her impulsivity seemed to switch on when she put the phone in her hand. As if the phone itself switched her amygdala on and turned her pre-frontal cortex off. She had an Instagram account, but stopped posting soon after she began to study the brain. Later, she stopped scrolling. It was one reason she and Marisol drifted apart. While sitting together on the couch, instead of sharing what they discovered on their feeds with each other, Marisol continued to scroll at the end of the night. Becca went for a walk in the dark, observing her insignificance by scrolling through the stars.
When Jules received the letter from Tommy Sullivan, he was stunned. He’d spent so many years in grief after absorbing Violet’s sudden removal from his life. The boiling anger he’d felt toward that man, that slow-simmering rage at the unfairness of the universe, Jules had managed to release most of it in those following few years. The grief therapy helped. Hearing how universal that pain of sudden absence was, how unfair death often was, it all led to a solitary peace eventually. Those conversations with Seamus and then with Becca. The letter was unexpected. Tommy wanted to acknowledge the pain he caused, but he knew the act was unforgivable.
Jules’ amygdala lit up. His memories of the courtroom seeped into his late-night tossing and turning. He agonized all over again. The ghost of Violet flooded his daydreams. That fucking letter. He wanted to write back, but there was no return address, just a phone number. Jules wanted to tell Tommy that he was torturing an old man with unwanted memories, but he refused to call him or text him.
Reva had now been staying with him for two months. They had agreed on a facility. Reva put down a deposit. He was fifth on a waiting list. The place had 75 one-bedroom suites. Jules joked to Seamus that he was waiting for five of the over-90 crowd to go. Reva was back in Philly for a few days, so Ako came to the house, staying from eight a.m.-two p.m. Ruby and her little Ruben arrived to relieve Ako at two and left at eight. For the week she was gone, Reva hired a night-time aid. Jules was in bed for most of that time, but the cost for overnight help was high. Reva was desperate for a week away, seeing her friends and gathering up more things to bring back to her temporary home.
Jules daydreamed about his own mind as a tabula rasa, a slate that could be wiped clean. He slowly became comfortable with the idea of moving out of his house, realizing that the memories of Violet might stop upon his exit. He wondered if he’d make some new friends. The list of programming at the facility was extensive. He was too old for pickle ball, but he wasn’t too old for poker. There were “Music Quiz Nights” on Thursdays. There was even a “Walking Group.” The website said that the group met after breakfast. The grounds of the facility was only 750 acres. Just over one square mile. Sounded like a short walk, but at least they offered the group. Jules imagined himself walking three loops after breakfast, with the other members dropping out of the non-race as he continued looping.