Unlikely Story

by Ali Rosen

But if there was ever a metaphor for letting people in, of course Eli would’ve been the wordsmith to inadvertently come up with the perfect one: we’re actually moving ahead with his duplex plan. What started as his favorite joke—about playing telephone between our apartments or adding in a fireman’s pole—soon became an idea he was casually looking into. It started with a few articles about apartment combinations (“Hey, Nora, look at the photos of what these people did! That spiral staircase really doesn’t reduce the square footage almost at all!”), and eventually ended with a dinner party where a friend who was an architect pulled out a measuring tape. When I asked him if he was serious, he looked at me with shining eyes and said, “Only if you really want me to be.” And in that moment, I knew I truly did. I’ve spent my whole life bending to fit other people, making myself smaller when someone needs me to be, or picking up their slack when they don’t want to carry it anymore. And I like being reliable. I like being a steady hand for people who live their lives a little wilder. But I want to be an equal. I want to build a spiral staircase between two identical apartments and let combining two lives double our capacity—neither person taking any more or accepting any less. Our life isn’t perfect—I can’t control my parents, I can’t make my brother step up more, and I can’t solve everything for my clients the way I would like. Eli’s mom’s health is still a concern, and he and hi...