Someone else’s milestone.

Nina clapped when Beth received her one-year chip. She meant the applause. She also noticed Beth’s husband standing near the back, holding flowers, and felt something close over inside her.

Nina had eleven months. She also had a rented room, a dented car, and a daughter who answered some of her messages. On the drive to the diner she counted these things as if someone had asked her to explain an unfair score.

At breakfast, Beth slid into the booth beside her. “You okay?” Nina said she was tired. It was a useful answer because it was partly true. She stirred her coffee after the sugar had dissolved.

Later, outside, she called her sponsor. “I’m jealous,” she said before she could soften it. Saying the word did not make her generous. It did make the conversation possible. Her sponsor listened while she named what she missed.

The vineyard conversation from Deepen had bothered her for the same reason. She wanted grace, but she also wanted a chart that showed what eleven months should have bought. Admitting that felt uncomfortable. Her daughter’s trust was not a reward someone had failed to issue.

That evening, Nina wrote down three things about the day. She had celebrated her friend. She had told the truth about envy. She had driven home sober. Underneath, she wrote that she still missed her daughter. She did not cross that sentence out to make the page look grateful.

She sent Beth a message about the courage it had taken to ask for help a year earlier. It was specific, and she meant it. Then she set her phone down without checking whether her daughter had replied.

The next morning she put her own chip beside her coffee. Eleven months. For a few quiet minutes, it was a length of time she had lived, rather than a place behind someone else.