The light above the stove flickers when she touches the switch. It always does—once, twice, then a low buzz before it stays on. The bulb is new. The fixture is not.
Sylvie Hart runs her fingers along the counter’s edge, stopping where the laminate has begun to lift. She presses it flat with her thumb. The surface feels cold and faintly greasy, though she wiped it the night before. She leaves the blinds closed.
A floorboard near the fridge groans when she steps on it. She adjusts her path, crossing the kitchen at an angle she knows by feel. The refrigerator clicks on behind her.
She pauses near the window but doesn’t touch the blinds. Through the narrow slats, she can make out movement across the courtyard. A couple from unit 3B steps out together. They stand close while the door locks on the second beep. In the same span of time, the elevator doors close around another tenant.
She turns away and opens a drawer. Inside is a folded transit schedule, its margins filled with small notes. She does not unfold it. After a moment, she puts it back.
She shifts her weight. Her left leg pulls. The shoulder moves without protest. Outside, the trees across the street bend and then stop. She thinks about how long she could stand, and whether there would be anything to lean on at the stop.
She remains at the window longer than she planned. Cold seeps through the glass. Below, cars pass without slowing. A dog strains against its leash.
She could take the 21 bus across town and return the novel she finished last week. The transfer point has no bench. If the first bus runs late, she would stand the entire wait. She leaves her coat on the hook and steps back from the door.
By midmorning, she has read a community bulletin about upcoming roadwork, a brief piece on managing household expenses, and the beginning of an interview she doesn’t recognize. The print looks dense, the columns narrow. She rereads the same sentence twice and still cannot say what it said. Her gaze drifts to the margin, then to the crease between pages. She closes it and sets it aside.
She checks the transit app. The 21 is running behind. The timing no longer works. The alternate route adds distance and slope. She rests the phone on the counter and does not pick it up again.
She had attended the neighborhood planning meetings when they were held at the library. She arrived early and chose a seat with a clear path out. During open floor, she asked whether a bench could be added at the corner of Watson and 12th. Someone wrote it down on a clipboard. She watched the pen move and waited for them to look up. They did not.
The meetings moved the following month. The new building had stairs that narrowed as they rose—and no bus stop nearby. She missed one meeting. Then another. She sent an email. No one replied.
The newsletter still lists the meetings. The photos show full rows of chairs.
Women with disabilities are between 30 and 50 percent less likely to participate in civic or community activities than women without disabilities, with transportation cited most often (Disability Philanthropy Forum, Fact Sheet: Disability and Democracy).
Sylvie thinks about whether she’ll be able to sit once she gets there, and how soon she’ll have to stand again.
She makes a sandwich without thinking. She lays down one slice of bread, adds a piece of bologna, spreads a line of yellow mustard, then tops it with the second slice. She presses it flat with her palm before she eats. She stands with one hand on the counter. The table stays clear.
She scrolls while she eats. There are no messages. A store promotion sits unread at the top of her inbox. A weather alert follows it, unopened.
Nearly half of women with disabilities report feeling lonely often or always, compared to just over one in five women without disabilities (Kobayashi, Steptoe, Cadar, & Kumari, 2021).
The room stays still. Her plate is nearly empty before she realizes she hasn’t looked up.
No one is expecting her. If she went out now or three hours from now, it would make no difference.
She lies down on the couch. The remote rests in her hand. She sets a timer for thirty-five minutes and places the phone screen-down on the cushion beside her. When it vibrates, she doesn’t move at first.
About one in three women with disabilities lives alone—nearly twice the rate of women without disabilities (Thomas, Bach, & Houtenville, 2025).
She shifts her legs and adjusts the pillow. Then she sits up.
The elevator runs smoothly in the late afternoon. She hears it pass her floor, stop below, then rise again.
She considers going out. The market on the corner is still open. She imagines the weight of a basket, the pause at the register, the walk back uphill. She imagines where she would stop if she needed to.
She does not leave. The walk back would be harder than the errand is worth.
The apartment settles into evening. Streetlight spills across the far wall and stops short of the couch.
At 8:11 p.m., she thinks, Check route again tomorrow.
She locks the apartment and walks down the hall to her bedroom. She does not set an alarm.
References
- Kobayashi, L. C., Steptoe, A., Cadar, D., & Kumari, M. (2021). Social isolation, health literacy, and mortality risk: Findings from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Health Psychology, 40(9), 555–563. https://doi.org/10.1037/hea0001086
- Disability & Philanthropy Forum. (n.d.). Fact sheet: Disability & democracy. Disability & Philanthropy Forum. Retrieved February 2, 2026, from https://disabilityphilanthropy.org/resource/fact-sheet-disability-democracy/
- Thomas, N., Bach, S., & Houtenville, A. (Eds.). (2025). Annual disability statistics compendium: 2025 (PDF). Institute on Disability, University of New Hampshire. https://www.researchondisability.org/sites/default/files/media/2025-03/pdf-online_full-compendium-with-title-acknowledgement-pages.pdf
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