Heather Lewis: Notice

Once she got us inside I shucked her coat on my way to the couch. Already I knew she couldn’t give the fixing I needed.

I curled up on the couch with my back to her. Wanted her with me, and not. The sight of her had started these sobs in my chest, and then in my throat. Hurting me because of the rawness, how torn I was there. But I still couldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop from sobbing, though it seemed so important to, more this time than ever.

I felt her hand on me, on my shoulder, uncertain but still soft and so making my crying that much harder to control until I left off trying. And then she’d curled behind me and was holding on, and for a time this was helping.

We wound up turned around. She was propped against the couch’s arm with me leaning back in her arms. Her hands were stroking me. It felt sweet, having her hands on me, until one of them went into my shirt, which I hadn’t buttoned well, and this wildness started from her fondling me, my breasts.

This simple thing crippled me, made me unable to move and so I didn’t, but went tight in her arms and this started her talking. Saying those things she always said, and her hands moving along my stomach and me feeling the little cuts there, but her seeming not to. All this continued until she got into my pants and I jerked away when she found the gash there.

The feel of it must’ve startled her too, because she yanked away the same moment I did. Then her arms were around me again, and there was blood on her fingers, and she kept saying, “What’s happened to you?” and “Who did this?”

I lay there mute, letting her keep on this way until it’d run its course and then she was quiet, except for saying, “Oh, sweetheart,” again and again. And her mouth was close to my ear and her kissing me near there, now and then.

I felt my body letting go, leaning heavy into her, deadly. Her arms felt heavy too. A solid weight, lulling me. I think maybe I even drifted off, or half did. I remember feeling so tired again. I didn’t want ever to have to get up from this.

But then she was getting us up. Held me tight around the waist and walked me to her car. Came around my side and opened the door for me, helped me in. I didn’t know where we were going. Panicked a minute she might turn toward the hospital or the police station. But she turned the other direction, which meant either my place, or hers.

I knew she’d take me home. Much as I didn’t want to go back there, I couldn’t tell her. I hadn’t spoken at all this whole time we’d been together. I knew no matter how hard I wished it, we wouldn’t be going to her place. That I wouldn’t find myself in her bed, which seemed the only place I wanted to be, the only safety I could think of.

I knew my place was safe, too. In the real sense of it. I knew they were done with me, that Ingrid’s husband was. That I’d never see any of them on purpose ever again. But going back there still felt very bad. And the closer we came, the further away went all that soothing and lulling until in its place were these bands wrapping my chest tighter and tighter. Wide but thin – sheet metal full of a strange current, filling me with a jagged, ragged energy that left me useless and disabled.

When we got there, Beth nearly had to pull me from the car. So much so, I heard her ask, “Is someone still there?” Heard her ask this in an unnerved way, like this had only just now occurred to her and she was frightened by it.

I shook my head in a disjointed motion that hurt my neck and I felt my hand go to my throat, felt the burns again, and it hurt inside too, it wouldn’t stop hurting there.

She put her arms under mine and then around me when she’d got me to my feet. And then she walked me like you would an invalid. She walked me to the door and then through it and up the stairs. All the way, she was saying little things like, “It’s not so very much further.”

When we got to the door she had to fish my pockets for the keys – that’s how worthless I was. And her going into my pants stirred that sore and so I cried more, yelped even a little. And she said, “We’re almost there, sweetheart. Almost there.”

She put me on the couch and looked around the place. I took my glass, or someone’s, from the table and sucked at the vodka while she tried to make some kind of order of things.

I felt embarrassed. Ashamed of how it looked, at how much you could tell by looking. She brought me a blanket and wrapped it around me. She let me keep my drink.

Through the door, I watched her changing the sheets. Felt more shamed by this than anything so far, and more cared for. These two things made me slump back, loosening those bands wrapping my chest until I found myself crying again – quietly at first and then heaving from it, afraid this time I’d never stop.

Then she’d come over to me. She put the bullet on the coffee table without a word about it. That stopped me crying. She led me toward the bedroom and I found myself that same way as in her car. Fighting her every step, and her being that same way too, saying, “It’s all right now. No one’s going to hurt you.” But I no way believed her.

She got me in there and undressed me. There were pillows behind me and the sheets felt good, soft and clean, and this calmed me some until I remembered the last one to change them was Ingrid. This sent me taut again, and Beth had gone away, had gone into the bathroom. I found myself afraid they’d stolen the money, Ingrid’s money. But Beth was back before I had time to check the drawer and know for sure.

She had a bowl of soapy water and some washcloths, a bottle of alcohol, all these things in her hands. She put them on the bedside table, started dabbing at me with one of the cloths, cleaning my face. I felt childlike. It stung when she got at my face with the alcohol, when she bathed my neck with it. And so I behaved like a child, quivering when she put her fingers to my lips, mewling when they came back bloody.

I didn’t want her to see the rest of me. I’d pulled the covers up and wouldn’t let them go. She pried at my fingers. Told me, “Just lay down, now. Sweetheart, let me do this.”

I gave way to her. She seemed so much stronger than me, and this made me see I’d always thought I was the strong one of the two of us. I started to wonder if maybe this notion was as wrongheaded as the rest of my thinking.

The cloth on my wrists made them feel better, but when she got to my stomach it hurt again. Stung from the touch of it, and then more when she used the alcohol.

I didn’t want her to tackle that real cut. I wanted her to leave it alone, but I knew she wouldn’t. Getting to it stopped her, though. Caught her up, it seemed, because she started for it and then moved past to my ankles. And after she’d finished them, she went back to the bathroom.

When she came in again she brought clean water and another cloth.

I felt her hands on my thighs, her trying to nudge them apart – that’s how I realized I was holding them tight together and couldn’t seem not to. “Come on, baby,” she was saying. “I need you to let me.” And when this was too obtuse for me to follow, she said, “Come on, sweetheart. Just let me open your legs a little.”

I felt them coming apart – from the force of her hands or my own inclination, I couldn’t tell. Her hands did feel solid. Solid and sure and making me believe her, though maybe not wholly because I was trying to sit up and watch what she was doing.

Her face made me lie back again. She looked as pained as I felt. I fell back and tried not to cower, but this wasn’t possible, it hurt too much. Seemed to hurt more than them having done it. And I was crying and struggling that same way – inside myself, but showing no outward sign of it.