Page 52 of Trade
“You’re going to be okay, Gloria,” a nurse tells me while she cuts off my coveralls with a pair of scissors. “You’re home now. We’re going to take good care of you. You’re safe now.”
She believes it.
“It’s all over now,” she murmurs as she gently peels strips of coveralls away from my bloody skin.
She’s right. It’s over now.
It’s all over now.
* * *
They keep me in the infirmary for five days. Mostly, I’m left to myself. Susan Jordan comes by with some papers for me to sign. I do so without argument, and then I close my eyes and pretend to fall asleep.
I picture Dalton, lying on his stomach by the lake, and imagine his chest rising and falling. I’m a thirty-nine-year-old woman. I’ve long since outgrown superstition and wishful thinking, but still, in my head, I make his lungs work, and if my mind wanders, I panic when I realize I’ve lost focus, as if I’ve let him die.
I should never have asked him to take me to the lake. I should’ve come right back.
I should’ve stayed awake that night and kept watch.
I should have fought. I’m so smart with my nose in books and an encyclopedia of trees and plants in my head, but I can’t throw a punch or use a knife, can’t disarm a man, can’t do anything truly useful.
I lie in the bed, every bone in my body hurting like hell, breathing for Dalton in my head and hating myself. Then one afternoon, the doctor tells me I’m good enough to go home. The nurse dresses me in drawstring pants and a top that ties shut. They give me fabric slippers with thin plastic soles, and an orderly escorts me out of the infirmary.
In the elevator, I’m surprised when he presses the button for Level C rather than Level K. My pulse speeds up. I don’t want to go anywhere near Neil Jackson or the rest of them.
“Where are we going?” I ask the orderly, a young man I don’t recognize.
“Your quarters,” he says.
“I live on K. In a dorm.”
“That’s not what I was told,” he says, unbothered, and goes back to staring at the letters that light up above the sliding doors.
He leads me right back to the quarters I shared with Bennett.
“I don’t live here anymore,” I say as the orderly bangs on the square window, still covered with the curtain I made out of a pair of my mother’s old coveralls that the Bursar deemed too worn for use.
“Take it up with Admin,” he says as he turns the knob and opens the door for me without waiting for anyone to answer.
As I shuffle inside, Bennett rises suddenly from his usual seat on the sofa where he was reading a book. I glance around the room where I lived for twenty years, my entire married life. The watercolor collages I did in the style of Adolphe Millot in senior year art seminar are still mounted on the concrete wall with putty—our heirloom vegetables, our kitchen garden exhibit, our tree collection with my favorite American elm in pride of place. The paper is yellowed and curling at the edges.
Dad’s chair is still in the corner. The metal shelves we inherited from Bennett’s grandparents have been moved to the wall across from the foot of the bed.
My dad’s books are stacked on the low wall that separates the sleeping area from the main room. They belong on the shelves, and the shelves belong across from the sofa.
“Where’s Meghan?” I ask.
They were right. There’s not nearly enough space in here for three people. There’s hardly enough air for me, and my busted ribs still won’t allow me to take a full breath. How did I live in this dingy cell and not go crazy?
Maybe I did; maybe I was crazy all along. I was deluded. Doesn’t that count?
I stare at Bennett while his gaze darts around the room like he’s looking for an escape. He won’t find one. We’re trapped here together.
I take in his waxy complexion and the grown-out lines of his high-and-tight. He’s overdue for a haircut. Nothing in this bunker has shrunk more than him. Did he never quite fill out his coveralls, or has he lost weight? Was his face always so readable? He’s miserable, guilty as hell, and furious about it.
He clears his throat. “It was decided that it would be best if she returned to her parents for the meanwhile.”
“Who decided?”
