One hand walks the edge of the steering wheel while the other dangles out the car window, sweatless even in 100 degree heat. In the distance, stars and a red crescent moon shine, and you can still feel the arms of your hostess around you, the faint pointing upwards of, "We'll have to have you and Rebekah and Viji here in the fall. We've got a telescope we can stargaze with if you want."

Her kindness strikes you, yet more than that, her easy sense of permanence. For her, there's no doubt that she'll be here in the fall, that you'll all be here in the fall. 

It's the same with your neighbor. She has plans spanning next year and next month. She's made you her plus one for every holiday because she knows you can't afford to go home. She's allowing herself to love you, though an apartment itself says "temporary."

She's been here 48 years minus 11, the regretful time she moved to Iowa. Almost everything terrible that's happened to her happened in Iowa. She came back home for her father, and even now she's grappling with the realization that not everything at home is permanent. The times has changed faster than she has, and she remembers when the Kwik Trip on Old PB - which is called M now - was the first of its kind in the city. She remembers when the apartment she lives in now was built in the fields she played in as a kid, climbing through the rubble of new construction and staring up in awe at the towering buildings. 

She can't imagine a world without roots, like moving to the other side of the country where she's the lone remnant of her graduating high school class. 

You surprise her sometimes, with your flitting about. She doesn't understand how you get lost so easily, your penchant to talk about home, to embrace the heat like its the summer blanket you forgot how badly you needed. Yet you do. She raises her love for home in glass displays and wonders why others exist. 

Every day for three weeks, you passed a carousel painted red. It meant nothing to you besides a novelty, an interesting piece for a workplace to have. Yet the first time your neighbor lays eyes on the sight, she cries, remembering the days it was stationed on the other side of town, and she'd welcome in spring on the painted wings of its steel dragons. 

They all gather around and wonder at you, your plucky grin. They whisper to each other as you pass that it won't be long now, and you'll be gone.