Jessica Chiarella - And Again

When the officer returns, David is with him. The sight of him is jarring, in this awful place, particularly because it’s the first time I’ve seen him in a suit. He looks like a congressman, though he smiles and gives me a little wave when the cop busies himself with opening my cell.

“Terribly sorry about the misunderstanding, sir,” the cop is saying. “I have a grandmother with Alzheimer’s myself. I know what it’s like to lose track every once in a while.”

“And of course, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep this to yourself,” David says as the gate to my cell swings open. He hands the cop a few bills. “Come on, sis, let’s go home, okay?”

I can’t help but rush to him and throw my arms around his neck. It is so, so good to see him, especially here, though I am thoroughly flabbergasted by what has happened. “Am I not arrested anymore?” I ask when I release him.

“No, not anymore. Come on,” he says, his voice low. He pretends that he’s not as delighted to see me as I am him, but I know better. I follow him out of the building and into a very expensive-looking car.

“How did you know I was here?”

“You had Dr. Bernard’s business card on you. They called him, but he’s at his vacation home in Michigan. I guess he thought I’d be a good runner-up.”

“What did you tell them?” I ask, as he opens the car door for me and I duck inside. It smells like new leather. It has the feeling of the inside of a museum, of still, expensive air.

“That you’re my mentally handicapped sister-in-law, and you wandered away from us at the mall.”

I can feel my mouth fall open. “That’s terrible.”

He grins at me. “Want to go back in there and tell them the truth? That you’re a cloned coma patient who likes to commit petty larceny in her spare time? Or I can have them call Tom, if you want.”

I fold my arms over my chest. “I wasn’t in a coma. I was conscious the whole time. There’s a difference.”

He chuckles as he starts up the car, pulling it out into traffic. “You live in Evanston?”

I nod, though I don’t bother to inquire how he knows.

“So what were you doing lifting a six-dollar figurine from Water Tower Place?” he asks. “This is how you spend your time now that you don’t have the support group to go to?”

“It’s a long story,” I reply, feeling the purr of the car’s engine through my seat.

“Well, this could be a long drive. I have to go the speed limit. No license,” he replies. I give him my best reproachful-mother expression. We cruise through Grant Park, heading toward the Lake.

“I’m pregnant,” I say, testing it out, trying to shock him. At first I think he hasn’t heard me because nothing shifts in his expression. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

“What does that have to do with you shoplifting a piece of junk from the mall?”

I shrug. “I don’t really know. Maybe nothing. It feels good though, to do something secret. Something just for me.”

“Most women, I don’t know, take up knitting. Read romance novels. That sort of thing.”

“Yes, us little women and our simple hobbies,” I say, and we both smile a little because I sound like Connie. “Well I can’t knit anymore. New body. My hands don’t remember it.” I hold them up in front of me like a couple of foreign objects, their skin smooth and supple and enduringly perfect. “Don’t you ever want to do something wrong? Simply because it’s wrong?”

We pull on to Lake Shore Drive, picking up speed, and David lets out a low whistle. “Boy, if there’s going to be an epidemic of this sort of behavior for everyone who goes through SUBlife, the program will never get past the FDA.”

“Maybe you should have let us crazies sabotage it for you,” I retort.

His hands tighten on the wheel. “I didn’t get a chance to explain last time. About the FDA. I didn’t have a choice.”

“Maybe if you tried to explain, we would have understood. But you were too busy yelling at her.” We both know who I mean.

He nods. “Want me to explain it now?”

“No,” I reply. “It doesn’t matter now.” The damage has already been done. There is no taking it back, not for him. Certainly not for me. I sniffle and realize that my eyes are full of tears. It’s as much a surprise as before, when Cora would wipe my face with tissue and not even pause in what she was saying. But I know it’s different now. I know this body feels too much for my tears to ever be involuntary. “I don’t know if I want it,” I say. “The baby.”

He fishes in the center console and pulls out a pack of tissues, which he thrusts at me. “I think I’m the wrong person to talk to about this.”

“Because you’re a Christian?” I ask, taking the tissues and using one to wipe my nose.

“Because most of the time I’m a lousy parent. Even when I’m actually trying,” he says. “And yes, I’m a Christian. So I’m not the one to be discussing your options with.”

“I don’t have any options,” I reply. “Courtesy of all the paperwork we signed. Or in my case, the paperwork my husband signed.” I can’t keep the tinge of anger out of my voice at the idea of Tom still directing the course of my life without my permission.

“You know, someone once told me that there are two kinds of unplanned pregnancies. There are the babies you don’t want. And then there are the spouses you don’t want,” David says.

“What if it’s my whole life that I don’t want?” I ask, before I can catch myself. I put a hand to my mouth. “Jesus, I shouldn’t say things like that. My kids.” He reaches over and grasps my shoulder. It’s a reassuring feeling, fatherly. I pull my sleeve up and dab at my eyes with it. “I imagined running away this afternoon. Just going, not looking back, not ever. Disappearing. Again.”

“Well, I can take you anywhere you want,” David says, tapping the steering wheel with his palm. “Just say the word.”

“The worst part is, I don’t even know where I’d go,” I reply, even though it’s a lie. I know exactly where I would go, if I could. If such a place existed.

I think very seriously about selling my apartment. It seems, at first, like the smart thing to do; I’ve put so much work into it over the years that I’m sure I could make a solid profit on it. It’s difficult to wake there every morning, to live alone within its walls for the first time, that I think it might be easier to tear every last scrap of my old life down and build a new one from its rickety foundations. Sometimes I think it might be easier if everything in my life is unrecognizable instead of just my body.

The tiny second bathroom, nestled off the room Sam used as an office, finally convinces me to stay. For no other reason, but that it would make a perfect darkroom. I buy the supplies for a small fortune online — darkroom components are terribly difficult to find now and most of what I order is second-hand and remarkably overpriced — but I’m up and running within a few weeks. The man from Home Depot looks at me like I’m crazy when I ask him to remove the toilet, explaining to me about the condo’s resale values as if I were a child, and then finally, begrudgingly doing what I ask. I put an enlarger in its place, set up a shelf of trays over the bathtub. A row of red safelights go over the mirror, which I cover with black acrylic paint so I don’t have to look at myself, my new self, in that muddy amber light.

The rhythm of the darkroom is soothing; that I remember from the class I took when I was a kid, how easy it was to slip into the patterns of light and darkness, the timed agitation of trays of chemicals — developer and stop bath and fixer and stabilizer and water wash — the patience required to get it right, just right, before you can dare bring your print out into daylight. I lose time in the darkroom, like I used to in my studio, with my little radio blaring away on a shelf above me, the music keeping stilted time with the click of the darkroom timer.