Heather Lewis - Notice

I didn’t remember this, doing this before, seeing her this way. And her saying my name over and over – my real name. She hadn’t done this before. Or, if she had, I hadn’t let myself hear it. But that didn’t matter, not exactly. Except that it did. It mattered most of all.

But now she’d left off this and was just making sounds, sounds I could get lost in. I watched her face intently. Watched her while she was coming. And when she’d finished she looked shy and defenseless as she curled into my body.

I had this sense of gathering her up. I pulled her as close as I could and this did feel better – having things the other way around. Somehow, through this, I felt all right. That we were all right – the two of us together. That we were together.

Feeling this way lasted a long while. Lasted until she shifted a little, was shifting me on to my back with her looking down on me. I wanted to change it again, change it back the other way, but something in her eyes kept me from trying, made me close my eyes instead.

I felt her body pressing the whole of mine, felt her hands along my sides, her thigh between my legs. And I was glad when she kissed me because I’d had the uneasy sense she was smiling, smiling out of wanting me, and I didn’t like it.

I knew what she’d do before she started. Before she began to move her mouth down my body. And I knew her doing this would get me lost again. That she’d take me back to that place I loathed and craved.

I didn’t bother anymore with trying to stop it. I just let it happen. And either the drug wasn’t there anymore or it wasn’t enough. That big wailing thing had taken up the whole of my chest and seemed to go further. I could feel it right through to my back, hurting me there. And I could feel it when she put her hand in me; I could feel it there, too. And I feared I couldn’t keep the noises inside. That this sound echoing up into my mind was bigger than me.

But when the tears started, they weren’t big. They trailed my cheeks slowly. I turned my face into the pillow to hide them, but it didn’t work. I couldn’t seem to hide anything. The whole of me, all my insides, mingled with what she was doing and I wasn’t used to this overlap.

I began to make sounds. And they were about coming, but weren’t only that. They were filled with that howling thing too, and unmistakably. So much so she nearly quit what she was doing until I told her, “Please…” And the sound of my voice was halting and haunting. I’d meant to say more but couldn’t, not if it would sound this same way.

She finished me, then drew herself up beside me and I clutched her and held on. She whispered these soothing things to me that weren’t quite like words. She held me tightly. I didn’t know which thing was breaking me, only knew I was broken.

And she knew too, but misplaced it. She’d seen I was torn, seen that tear from the gun. She said, “Sweetheart, what’s happened? How’d this happen?” And her finger was there, fondling lightly, and so Burt was there too. And me trying to push him away but keep her. This made harder with them both calling me the same thing.

Her calling me that now, saying, “Sweetheart, tell me. Tell me who did this?”

Of course, I couldn’t. So I tried to go back to the way I would’ve handled this before. I said, “Just some trick getting nasty.”

But my voice sounded wrong, still came from too far inside me. Letting her too far inside me. And letting that baying thing loose again. Letting it out where she might maybe see it. And maybe she had seen it, or sensed it, because she took her hand away from that tear and put it on to my chest. Began to fondle me there. Did this so slowly, and kept on that way even once my tears came again.

And she still stayed steady and slow when I couldn’t keep hold of myself anymore. When that howling thing took me over. When it had me at bay, or she did. When she was laying down with it. Laying me down with it, in it. Until it was all of me, or she was.

I spent the night with her. I nearly did. She woke me up before it was light out and this felt superstitious to me. That someway if we never woke up together in the morning, in the light, it kept this thing between us not quite real, or in some separate place.

She drove me home in the half-light of dawn and I thought, what will we do as the days get longer, how will we keep our meetings always at twilight? How will it change things? And so from this dead space that was still winter I asked, “Where’s your husband?”

I surprised myself with this question and also with where it had come from. She looked stunned by it. I actually believed she was weighing the ethics of telling me her problems. That this slowed her answer. It seemed both ridiculous and sweet.

“He’s moved out for a while. We needed some time apart.”

She said this as if it had nothing to do with me and maybe it didn’t. At least I could believe this. I wondered whether she could, or even was trying to.

Once I was home – in my own bed by myself – I couldn’t believe it at all. I could only see I’d busted another marriage. To even imagine this felt dangerous. Like this hole in me getting bigger and more torn at the edges would just keep growing until it’d taken me over. And I could see it making holes in other people, in Beth. Tearing at her life as well.

I thought of calling Burt because, for the moment, drugs seemed the answer. That one drug did. Calling him wasn’t possible though, not having his number or a clue to his last name. And this meant facing Beth again, with this new knowledge and nothing to bolster me.

I began drinking soon after. It didn’t work very well. It only reminded me I needed so much more in order to cope. The one thing it did accomplish was to keep me at home. It placed me where I thought I should stay – in my bathtub, surrounded by warm water and with a glass propped on the edge of the tub, the bottle on the floor beside me.

I’d even brought the phone in and doing this reminded me Beth had said nothing about talking to Burt. And nearly on cue the phone rang and I felt afraid to answer it.

I let it ring a long time and when I picked it up different voices sloshed around in my head. Made the voice actually there hard to make out.

“Nina? Nina, he knows you called. I’ve been phoning for two days but you never answer.”

“Ingrid,” I said as some sort of horror crept in beside, or through all the booze.

“Listen to me, now. It’s not safe anymore.”

“Did you call last night?” I asked, then realizing I had the day wrong.

“I’ve been calling. Have you been there?”

“What?”

“Who was that? That man? I thought I knew him. I know his voice.”

Gradually I understood she’d been the one to call that other night. And instead of concerning me, this saddened me – that it hadn’t been Beth after all. I sat there thinking, well maybe she called later. I puzzled this while Ingrid kept saying, “Nina. Nina, it’s important you listen to me now.”

I didn’t really listen. I couldn’t. Though some part of me had gone into motion. I was getting out of the tub. Knocked the glass on the floor, then picked it up. I carried it, and the bottle and the phone and a robe, into the living room because the bedroom seemed too dark and ugly.

I sat on the couch and tried very hard to grasp what she was saying. But all I kept hearing was that name I’d given her to call me, her saying it over and over. And then I stopped struggling to hear anything else because what could I do? And once I stopped trying, I began understanding her, accomplishing this all too well.

“Nina, he might come for you. I don’t know what he’ll do.”