Heather Lewis - Notice

I hadn’t seen my things since they took them off me that first day. I hadn’t thought about my own things until this minute. It was something about having my face pressed into Beth’s coat and knowing it belonged to her. It even smelled like her. This somehow was what started me crying.

I let myself for a while. Let myself for as long as I could because something in me needed to do this and knew it. Still, pretty soon I choked it off. And when I tried to get up this time, instead of pulling me down, Beth got up herself and then helped me.

I fished Gail’s pocket for cigarettes. I found her pack pretty fast and pulled one out. A long, skinny Virginia Slim I felt stupid about smoking until I put it in my mouth. It had that nice feel like when you put any cigarette in your mouth after you’ve kissed somebody, after you’ve had anything bigger to suck on.

There were matches tucked into the cellophane wrapper. I got them out and lit the cigarette. All this while I half expected Beth to stop me. But she didn’t.

I held the pack out to her. She shook her head. Then we started walking, me with one hand holding the cigarette and the other clutching myself around the middle. Beth had her hands clasped behind her back like it was the best way to keep them still. After a while she shoved them into her coat pockets.

I went through that cigarette, and then another. We kept walking but not saying anything more. After the second cigarette she held her hand out and I took it. But soon we were walking with our arms around each other and this purring began working its way through my chest to my stomach and then lower.

I recognized this but pretended I didn’t know from where. Kept this up even when we were back in that little room and she was hugging me goodbye. The hugging was making this same feeling all the stronger and bigger and so it took up more space. Ran up into my chest again, and back down. Then was both places at once and everywhere in between. And when she pulled away, it got stronger still, but then seemed to actually follow her until I staggered some from trying to hold on to it.

The next day Beth took me out walking again. I felt shy for how I’d felt at the end of the day before. Afraid it had showed, while at the same time I wasn’t quite admitting it to myself. It seemed important not to let that thing get in the way again. That those feelings would cause the same kind of trouble they had with Ingrid. That if I could just keep from having them, I’d stay safe.

This was the problem – having these feelings, and Beth asking me things. It made me think of Ingrid. The one thing about living the way I’d been living – day-to-day with no thought before or beyond – it’d kept me from thinking about Ingrid and her husband, or about the daughter.

The way I got when Beth asked – and she’d begun asking sooner today, as soon as we sat down against that same log – the way I got let me know that I never stopped thinking about it. That it was always there pulling on me, and me trying not to go under to it.

Today she asked again how it happened. “How did you get here?” she was saying. “I know what it says, but what happened?”

“He had me arrested.”

“Who did?” she asked. And I found myself looking at her, and disbelieving, and then slipping away.

“Oh, come on,” I said, fighting an urge to get up. Instead I took a pack of cigarettes from Gail’s pocket. A fresh one. A pack I had to open. And halfway through doing this I noticed the shape of the pack, noticed my brand.

This little thing stopped me because it didn’t seem little at all. And even though Gail had done it, it brought me back closer to Beth.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought you’d know. What do you know anyway?”

“Your file says you were arrested for prostitution. That you became violent while resisting arrest. It says you were sent here by an arrangement with the prosecutor’s office. The admitting doctor put you in seclusion because of a history of violent behavior.”

“Seclusion? Is that what they call it?”

I’d gotten up while she was talking but she stayed put. I paced around a little. Finished the one cigarette and started another.

“That’s not how it happened,” I said. And I looked closely at her. Tried to see what she believed.

She had the kind of look I remembered from that first time I met her. It’d been the end of the day. Near the end of Gail’s shift and so there hadn’t been much time. Beth hung on to me. And the look on her face right before she did this was like it had happened to her. Or like she felt what I couldn’t feel. Her eyes got so full and her mouth turned soft and then she just pulled me toward her. And though I hadn’t remembered it until now, I’d hung on too. I’d buried myself in her like I’d never have to let go, except I did have to.

When she’d pulled away from me, she’d had that same look like the one she had now and I found myself sitting back down beside her, huddled against her and I said again, “That’s not how it happened.”

I said this over and over until it became clear I couldn’t say what should come next and she let me mumble. She said soothing things in between, said again the thing I’d held on to all night. She said she’d get me out.

A while later she walked me back. Gail met us at the door and told us to hurry because the shift was changing soon and she didn’t want to get caught. She meant by the woman coming in next. No one else noticed what went on with me. That was the point, not to notice. The point was for me to be forgotten.

Beth came into the room with me. By the way she lingered I remembered it was Friday. Remembered because I was still counting the days and this was our fifth one together.

We stood there facing each other and over Beth’s shoulder I could see Gail in the doorway. I slipped off her coat. She held out her hand for it and then put it on, but still she stood there. She waited for us and I got that shy feeling back and I felt it off Beth too. I knew I did.

Beth stood there an instant longer and she took my hands in hers and then she kissed me. She kissed my cheek. She’d never done this before and I couldn’t recover myself. She’d already turned to leave and Gail was talking hurriedly, first to Beth and then me. Talking so fast I lost the first few things she said and after that could only hold on to the cigarette pack she pressed into my hand and the matchbook.

Those two things got me through the weekend. The nurses mostly left me alone, except around feeding time. Even that went smoother because I seemed able to eat.

I picked a corner near the door to spend time in. Usually I took one opposite because being further away seemed more private, and it let me see what was coming. But this one meant I could smoke and light my own and be pretty sure of not being spotted.

And, crouched there, I thought about Beth. Not about the things I probably should have spent time on, like what to tell her about Ingrid, how much I should say. No, what I thought about was her kissing me and the feel I got off her right before, the shyness. I spent a lot of time wondering what this could mean, or what I wanted it to mean.

I kept it up. I kept it up through the whole weekend. I thought about this moment so much and so long that by the next time I saw her, this one little thing had become so big. Big enough it took up space between us. And as we walked in those woods I felt myself keeping apart from her. Staking actual physical distance. And she seemed to be doing this too. Though I couldn’t be sure.

When we got to that log and she sat down, I stayed standing. I stood there for so long saying nothing that finally she said, “Did something happen over the weekend?”