Kaitlyn Greenidge - We Love You, Charlie Freeman

And I saw that he’d written little notations beside me: estimates for dimensions — scribbles of number with double prime marks for “inches.” And he’d used my name, my secret name. He’d written Nymphadora . I turned the page over to Rosalee again and saw she had the same marks beside her. And on a few, I could see my measurements and hers. And this equation:

(Rosalee)(12") / (Rosalee)(34") > (Nymphadora)(42") / (Nymphadora)(36")

That stupid, stupid sign. That little gaping mouth, pointing his love for Rosalee, how he had scientifically determined she was greater than me. I almost tore the drawings in half right then. But I didn’t: I turned cold. The same feeling that had come over me when I burned my parents’ store started to quake, and I put the drawings back as best I could. I took one close-up detail of Rosalee’s face, her eyes full and trusting, I took this with me and slipped it into my handbag. Then I opened the door to Dr. Gardner’s office, and I ran down the hallway, trying to remember the way as best I could. I ran back down the little stairway and I ran back down the steps and out of the kitchen and down the long gravel drive. Away and away, I ran and I ran until my chest burst. And I had her face in my pocket.

Dr. Gardner sent me letters in the mail every day for a month. I didn’t answer a single one.

Where did you go off to?

Will you come sit for me again?

Tell me how I offended you and give me a chance to defend myself at least, please.

You are being impossible.

He even risked gossip and came to Sermon on the Mount’s house and asked if I was in, but I told her to tell him I wasn’t home. I watched him walk away from behind my window curtain. I am not proud to say, but following his cringing walk as he made his way down the street, the falsely modest bend of his back, I still loved him even then.

I stayed in my bed all day. Luckily, it was still summer recess, as I don’t think I had the will to drag myself from my nest of sheets to face a roomful of students and write alphabets on a chalkboard.

Instead, I lay on my side, my one good blouse buttoned up to my chin, my skirt and drawers in a tangle on the floor beside my bed. I let the hot muggy air wash over me. I only kept on the blouse so that I could wear my pin. I worried that pin constantly, twisting it back and forth while turning over the picture of Rosalee’s face. I didn’t eat anything for three days: I only sipped at the dull water at the bottom of my washbasin. On the fourth morning, when I woke up sweaty and spent, my fingers ripe and swollen from turning that pin, I knew what I had to do.

I packed up everything I owned. It fit easily into one small suitcase. I left behind only my bottle of scent. I thought for certain I would leave behind my Star of the Morning pin — my fingers were hovering up near my throat, I was ready to take it off. But something stopped me and I let it stay. It was as if the pin had decided, all on its own, that it would come with me.

I waited till night, till I heard Sermon on the Mount creak first one way past my door, then the other. For the past few days, she’d knocked a few times to check on me, and I’d meekly called to her that I was merely tired, and Sermon on the Mount, bless her, bless her, never turned the doorknob. She only called back, “All right, then,” and kept walking. When I opened the door and went out into the hall, I shuffled on the sides of my feet as I passed by her bedroom door. I left the remainder of my month’s rent on her tea table, tucked under a fine bone saucer. When I opened the front door and tripped down the steps and down onto the street I felt the dark close around me. I kept going, my legs trembling a little bit from the lack of exercise, the muscles shaking until they grew steady and by then I was out of Spring City. I crossed into Courtland County.

That night, my suitcase weighed heavy in my fist and my schoolmarm’s boots bit at my heels, and I wished I’d listened to Pop and not Mumma in such matters as the natural world and guides in the wilderness. Mumma only taught me metaphors that were useless now. Knowing the moon was the alias of Diana was not helping me. I kept glancing up at it as I walked, but not once did that cold, fixed stone seem to change place in the sky. At least, I told myself, it stayed bright. At least it didn’t dim. And then, when I thought I could go no farther, I was there.

At night, the birch trees and the gravel of the Toneybee Institute glowed and the building didn’t squat like it did during the day but seemed, instead, graceful, as if it had suddenly decided to take a deep breath and stand up straight. It was all so pretty it made me bold.

When I got to the kitchen door, I panicked: what if it was locked? I tested the door and was relieved when it swung open without a sound.

Once indoors, I let the smell guide me. I followed the stench of apes up the little staircase and down the hall, past Dr. Gardner’s now-dark office, around a corner, down more stairs. Then I came to it. A large door at which I did not even hesitate. I pushed hard and again it swung open for me.

In the dark, I could hear them dreaming. I heard them inhale. Exhale. Sigh for some other place, far away and dim and half forgotten. I wondered how I would know which cage was hers, but again, luck was on my side. When I leaned close I saw, in the hard white glare of the moon, that each cage was tagged.

The first one read BENJAMIN; the second one, JOSEPH. I went past three more cages until I found her. Rosalee. She was farthest from the door and her cage stood alone.

I settled down, tried to make the only sound the whisper of my skirt: the last thing I needed was to startle a bunch of apes awake and raise the alarm. I considered her where she lay. I thought about maybe just picking up the cage and carrying it off, but I tested it and it was too heavy.

I drummed my fingers against my knees and tried to figure out what to do next. And then, I felt the little spark, like static electricity, that one feels when one realizes she is being watched. A flash like sunlight slapping water. Rosalee was awake and her eyes gleamed at me in the dark.

We studied each other for a good while. I had not held eye contact with any being, human or otherwise, for a long time and I found myself, again and again, following the curve of her perfectly made eyes, large and amber, and the very elegant slope of her brow. I thought, with a flash of bitterness and insane panic, Of course he prefers her. All the while, Rosalee gazed steadily back at me, probably taking in my goggled eyes and dead tooth with a curiosity that in a human would be called sympathetic. Then she leaned forward and took a long, theatrical sniff. I held my fingers up to the bars so she could know me better. To my surprise, she grasped my two longest fingers in her hand, brought them close to her mouth and pressed them to her lips.

With my free hand, I rubbed my pin one more time, good and quick, and then I took a deep breath. I drew my hand away very slowly and then I reached up and unlatched her cage. I waited a few seconds more. So did she. Then I reached into the cage and held out my arms and she crawled right into them, she did not even hesitate, and I embraced her.

The way back was slower. A young girl chimp is heavy. Rosalee nestled against me, draped her own arms around me, held on lazily, as if I were a bridegroom carrying her across the threshold after dancing all day at our wedding. She rested her head on my shoulder.

I tried to be quiet at first, but I realized this meant I could not be fast, so eventually I started moving at a clip. Through the hallway. Past Dr. Gardner’s rooms. Out, out, out into the night air. When we were outside under the moon, Rosalee was still holding on to my neck. She raised her head. I realized it had been a long time, possibly never, since she had been out of doors. She took it in stride, the only sign of her curiosity was her dilated nostrils, quivering very slightly, trying to catch the smell of the country at night.