The skill was called courtesy deafness and Nace had been good at it for as long as she'd been in proximity to other people. Not listening. Receiving but not registering, the way you tune out traffic when you've lived somewhere long enough. The voice of whoever was nearby arrived as ambient sound, and the city was loud enough that she could walk through most of it unheard and mostly not hearing.
She had been good at it with Roel for three years. Then she had stopped being careful, and now she wasn't good at it at all.
He thought in lists. What to do later, what he needed to buy, a minor complaint about his back that he mentioned aloud when it was bad and thought about constantly whether it was bad or not. She was in his thoughts the way a person is in their home: present, constant, and not particularly examined. When he said he loved her she could hear that he did, in the way you love something that has become the texture of your daily life. She had believed, before three years ago, that this was what love actually sounded like from inside. She was less sure about this now.
The market was Class B under the municipal ordinance: ambient noise minimum 62 decibels, enough that thought-proximity became a blur of general murmur and intent. She went Wednesdays. In the market she could walk and not know anything about anyone in particular.
The woman next to her in the pasta aisle was deciding between two brands of rice. She chose the cheaper one and felt: good, I like this. Nace received this and didn't mind it at all. She bought her pasta and stood in the aisle longer than she needed to.
On the walk home she passed a man sitting on the steps outside his building, crying. The street was loud enough. She heard nothing from him. Just his face, and his hands on his knees, and the specific quality of someone sitting very still in the middle of something.
She kept walking. By the time she got home she was still thinking about why she had been relieved.