Summer classes start soon and Susan wants to at least have done some of these exercises before then, but the limit of the function as x approaches two is the limit of her knowledge as time approaches the end of April is the asymptote she can come closer and closer to but never quite attain—
The book is taken from her hands and closed with a snap. Susan looks up. It's Aisha, who she hasn't seen since February when Susan skipped two days of class to be home with—
"I heard about Jake," Aisha says. She's got two hot dogs on a plate, which she puts down on the book so she can sit with Susan. "I am so sorry, honey."
Susan twists sideways and flings her arms around Aisha, clinging for dear life.
"They found the other two," Susan says into Aisha's hair. "Dead. Throats cut. And something strange they won't tell us about. No sign of Jake."
Aisha doesn't say 'maybe he's still alive'. Susan's glad. Mama won't stop saying it, because there must be a reason Jake's listed as MIA, not KIA; Susan knows 'missing' just means the body hasn't been found, or else it's in pieces too small to identify.
She won't cry. She won't. She's Susan Deborah Talley and she will face the world with her back straight and a smile on her face because her brother fought and died for her life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness and she will not be a shame to him.
"Easy, Susie," Aisha says.
"You take it easy, Susie," Jake said in February, right before he shipped out. "But not too easy. Don't you be wasting my money skipping any more classes, you hear? Can't have the future first lesbian President slacking on her schoolwork."
Susan grinned then, playing along, and doesn't grin now: it's not a joke anymore. It's a goal.
Susan breathes the jasmine scent of Aisha's shampoo and listens to the syncopation of their heartbeats, the chatter and laughter of the Memorial Day picnic, tastes salt on her lips and feels the softness of Aisha's hair on her cheek. She pulls back, scoots the plate onto the ground, and flips the textbook open. "So the limit of a function as x approaches a number is usually what you get when you put that number in for x and solve, right? If the function's three x plus two is zero, the limit approaching zero is three times zero plus two is two, approaching one is three times one plus two is five—"
"But this one gets you zero over zero," Aisha says, pointing at exercise two point one, "which ain't anything."
"Yeah. So instead of solving with two, we solve with numbers approaching two—" Susan grabs her calculator from her purse and presses buttons. One point nine times one point nine, minus one point nine, minus two, memory, one point nine minus two, divide by memory, and she takes a pencil and writes 0.345 in the table below 1.9. Memory clear, one point nine nine times—
The limit of this function as x pproaches two is one-third exactly. The limit of Susan Talley as she approaches her brother's wishes, goals, memory is infinity.