Chapter 27
27
It is just after Max’s fifth birthday—fireman-themed, in the Park—that Jane begins to feel faint. At first, it happens infrequently, every couple of weeks. Jane doesn’t wonder if it’s her period, which has been heavy, hard; or her back, which has been aching something fierce; or her art, which has been demanding and torturous some days. She knows it has nothing to do with forgetting to eat. These days, Jane is rarely hungry. She is distracted, focused. She has been on an airplane to and from California to see David, Abe’s brother. It is no strange virus, she knows, caught midair.
Jane knows.
Also, she is in the thick of it, finally. It has taken so many years. She eats more honey, drinks more tea.
But it will not quit.
In fact, it gets worse. Soon, Jane is passing out. It comes out of nowhere. First, she is fine, checking her face in the mirror or putting on shoes or stirring marmalade into oats. She is on the A train platform, assessing the ripeness of bananas at the supermarket, or listening to the news. Then, suddenly, a sensation comes over: it is like lead hands, little birds along her back. There is no feeling from her waist down. Everything drains out of her and Jane is stockings, no legs inside. She is standing and then, suddenly, not. Jane is on the floor, drenched in sweat, freezing cold.
Sometimes, she is able to stay alert—her body very loose, then very stiff. Sometimes, she wakes up, remembering a vivid dream of frogs, or a graphic-books bookstore on Avenue B, or the Jackson Five, of all things. Once, she hits her face on a chair on her way down. For weeks, there is a red smear on her cheek like someone has pulled a jammy spoon across.
Of course, Abe is concerned.
At first, Jane tells him that she slipped in her studio. Once, she faints in the bedroom when he is in the kitchen. He runs in.
I forgot to eat lunch, she says. It is not a lie.
That evening, Abe packs almonds in Jane’s purse and leaves a bag of oranges at the door to her studio.
You should get checked out, Abe says. He is not wrong.
Jane does not get checked out.
Instead, she goes for long walks, has tea with Bea, focuses on kaolin, a new favorite style of hers; she buys underwear that won’t show stains and large packs of sanitary napkins, which she goes through with an alacrity she never thought possible. She is courted by the dealer Collette Cooper, who has been Jane’s dream dealer for many, many years. Jane is beside herself with hope. Collette is a unicorn in her field.
When they finally meet, on a snowy day at Collette’s Upper East Side co-op, Jane makes sure to eat first. In Collette’s blush living room with a round satin sofa and calfskin rugs, Collette promises she’ll sell the hell out of Jane’s work. Minutes later, Jane faints in Collette’s bathroom. She has been bleeding for two weeks straight. When she comes to, Collette’s assistant is there, fanning Jane, who begs her not to tell. For all she knows, she does not.
Collette Cooper, always in leopard and lipstick. Always talking so fast. A golden ticket. A breast cancer survivor too.
The feeling, in the beginning, is that Jane does not have the luxury to stop. She has just signed with Collette. She has a show of her porcelain boats in two months. They will not finish themselves. There is an article coming out in which they call her the “Next Best.” There is such momentum and what a waste not to ride on it. Jane has worked so hard for so long and for this exact moment. It feels like fleeing something. It feels like coming back.
Lately, she and Abe have been on such different pages, crossing paths less and less, or crossing paths and forgetting to engage. On evenings when they might have real time together, with or without Max, the thought of being with Abe makes Jane uncomfortable. She feels pressure, as though they haven’t been a pair, happy, together, for so very long. As though they may not have enough to chat about, it may be awkward, or Jane may be bored. It is as though small talk with Abe would take away from Jane: art, time, inspiration.
As though he may ruin something holy.
The only true intimacy Jane can imagine with Abe is sexual, but it isn’t even about him. It is about urges, fury, sweating out a fever. It would have to be forceful and quick, Jane thinks, which is unlike Abe and which, frankly, she doesn’t have the spunk for. Where would she even begin? Never mind.
In the meantime, she is sure Abe feels the same way. He is working working working, writing writing writing. His books have done well, incredibly so. They are smart but accessible. His female characters, Jane thinks and so does everyone, are particularly strong. It feels like a moment of momentum that is both tenuous and unsustainable for them both.
And so, Jane thinks. And so.
Most days, lately, Jane suggests that Abe stay late at the office. She makes pasta with peas and Parmesan as Max practices chess on the floor. Their time together is neutral if not connected. Jane doesn’t feel herself around him. She is off-kilter, nervous, one shoe on, one shoe off. She is never sure when he will challenge her—and what she will lose. But he gives her less grief when Abe is gone. It is certainly easier.
When they are alone, Jane does not ask questions about his day at school, his friends, the weather. Max doesn’t offer his thoughts. Sometimes, she imagines other families, this time of night, sweet interchanges, affections, reading, feet intertwined on the couch. That thing about witnessing your children’s brilliance through their observations. But no. Max doesn’t make them—at least not to her. And so, she watches him. She finds solace in his diligence and focus, precision and obvious intelligence. When he goes to bed early, reads for an hour alone, as he likes it, and Jane goes back into her studio, leaving leftovers, a cookie, and a note for Abe—Enjoy! On deadline!—Jane’s balance is restored. She doesn’t feel full but she doesn’t feel broken either.
Hours later, Jane goes to bed only when she is sure that Abe is asleep. There are student manuscripts rising and lowering on his belly as he snores. Jane moves them to the nightstand, turns off the light, gets in bed with pants on, and faces in the other direction. She sleeps. In the morning, Jane and Abe exchange niceties. One of them is always rushing out the door with Max or some paperwork or a piece of toast, coffee mug, apple.
See you later!
Any real details, any real content of this time between them, goes in one ear and out the other. When was the last time they had a real, connected conversation? Sex? Jane cannot remember. And trying feels like a distraction.
It gets worse, and not just with Abe. Soon, it is not just the bleeding and the fainting, but a deep pain behind Jane’s belly button, above her pelvis, purple and vast, that she cannot ignore. The pain is akin to bricks being dumped on there, rough and sharp, heavy and harsh.
Of course, Jane thinks of her mother. She does the math. Jane is two years older than her mother when it started for her. For a moment, Jane feels like she’s gotten away with something. What exactly? Two years.
Jane holds the side of the sink. She girds herself against a building or squats down on the subway in a crowd. The cramps. The nausea. So much fog, but it is heavier than that. It is those bricks.
In the spring, finally, Jane makes an appointment. It is not because she wants to but because she has to. The pain is interfering with her work. She cannot focus. She’ll be painting and suddenly, folded over on the floor, on her side. The pain runs straight from her belly to her brain, which has gone foggy and slack and sometimes sharp and hot.
It is impossible to get anything done.
Abe’s semester is finishing. His big book is nearly done, the important one, he feels—though he hasn’t yet asked Jane to read it. Thankfully. He is able to help with Max more, but that doesn’t fix things. Jane is still the one to coordinate Abe’s mother and pickups, doctor’s appointments, fruit, toothpaste, and playdates. She is responsible for Max even when she is not responsible for him. Jane has turned in her collection to Collette and it’s not that there is time now—there is not.
On a rainy day in May, Jane goes to the doctor’s office alone. She doesn’t want to alarm anyone yet. And it feels somehow easier to gird herself, with just herself. Once there, she looks around the waiting room—child with the sniffles, grandmother, single man in sneakers and blue pants, old man in a wheelchair. Who helped him in? For a moment, Jane hopes someone will make eye contact with her. Tell her it’s all right. No one does. Maybe she should have invited Bea.
In the examination room, Jane takes off her clothes, puts on a gown, lies down preemptively, is grateful to rest.
The doctor comes in. Short, glasses, heart-shaped face, unfazed but not unkind. He asks about Jane’s symptoms. She tells him. She lies back down again. He palpates her lower belly.
Does this hurt? he asks.
Yes.
Does this?
Yes.
How much?
It does, Jane says.
The doctor nods, doesn’t make eye contact, keeps on. Jane jumps.
Ouch.
Sorry, the doctor whispers. Jane can tell that he is.
Hmm, he says—and then that they’ll have to do some more tests.
When he leaves, it is hard for Jane to breathe. All the pushing, all the pressure. For a few minutes, Jane cannot get up. She wants to ask her mother if it started like this for her too. She tries to imagine her mother alone, undressed, so young still, in a place like this. She tries to imagine her in a gown and socks. She wonders if her mother was treated differently for her accent, her eyebrows, her long braid. She hopes not. How futile, useless to hope, Jane thinks. Jane will never ever know. Any clues, any remnants or treasures, have been scrubbed away by time.
A wave of exhaustion comes over Jane, and she nearly falls asleep on the table. She daydreams. A bonfire on the beach, good days of Max painting in her studio, his belly covered in purple, Abe driving, Jane in the passenger seat, a stack of books on the floor. Jane has to move her feet to accommodate them. Abe’s hand is in Jane’s lap and they are two hearts in wind, speeding, winding, with the top town. Jane’s mother is kneading bread dough in their kitchen, sprinkling it with black sesame, turmeric, and salt. Jane’s mother is singing in Arabic, wavy, cursive, as she only did for Jane.
Remember?
Jane wakes up humming, the memories like fish, flickering in a lake. Jane wants to hold on to them. When the humming stops, the fish sink.
Jane remembers that the only time her mother ever arrived late for school pickup, she came sweaty, frazzled, apologizing. There was a pink medical gown under her gray dress that Jane noticed immediately.
I rushed to you, her mother said. I didn’t want you to worry.
Jane sits up. She realizes that she feels an odd freedom, a clicking into place. As if perhaps she has done nothing but worry since then. And until now, when the doctor said, Hmm.
And Jane knew.
The nurse comes back in. She asks if Jane needs something.
Jane’s instinct is to say yes. But what?
Jane lets the nurse help her to get dressed, though she doesn’t need it exactly. She lets the nurse squeeze her shoulder. Say, Oh, honey.
Jane collects her things: scarf, hat, purse, shoes.
She leaves the medical gown, folded, neat, on the chair. As though she never used it. As though it might be for someone else’s daughter, mother, friend.
Jane walks uptown on Columbus. Does she feel like she’s dying? She does not. The wildness of reality sometimes. Everyone always dying, all the time, and yet. Death as the most inevitable. The most unnatural. Power and powerlessness with these bodies of ours, she thinks. The way you can’t keep your eyes open for a sneeze.
For now, only Jane knows of what’s imminent. And what does she know really? That she and Abe are moving at different speeds, for example.
Hey, Abe. Wait.
For a moment, as Jane walks, she tries to imagine Abe alone. She tries to imagine herself gone.
On Seventy-Seventh, she turns into the Museum of Natural History, where they do not check her ID. They know her, smile and nod, and wave her along. She takes off her scarf and tucks it into her purse. Inside, her loupe tool, a comb, her sketchbook, yet another sanitary napkin, the nuts from Abe.
Jane makes her way; she could do it with her eyes closed. She comes here weekly, sometimes more than that. It isn’t the animals she’s interested in, the history, or the whale, but the Halls of Gems and Minerals on the first floor. They are tucked back past the Small Mammals and Insectarium, and precious, like a vault, dark and protected. Jane goes in. It is empty. A student with a sketch pad. A security officer. A woman with her back to Jane. That’s it.
Otherwise, just hundreds of gems, pronged upward. They are lit up like baby suns, or hearts in an operating room. Important, kept.
Every time Jane comes, she falls in love with a different stone. Sometimes, she is drawn to texture, to rawness. Tsavorite garnet. Sometimes, the round, polished, shiny ones speak to her. Sparkly pink quartz. Each time, there is no rhyme or reason. But always, always, Jane feels comforted and a part of a conversation about art and beauty in here. It feels otherworldly, the bottom of the ocean and also womblike. Places Jane has been and also not.
Today, Jane longs to get lost. She feels so unlike herself, so unsure, that getting lost might be the start of finding. She walks around and around.
But she cannot get lost.
Instead, a young woman, no one to speak of, seems to seek eye contact, a connection. Perhaps she knows—like a cat—that Jane is dying. Is she the nurse? Jane cannot gather her thoughts. No, she is not.
For a moment, Jane feels her staring at her. But the woman averts her eyes as soon as Jane looks. She is pretending not to notice Jane’s bag and hands. Her ring? Maybe she’s some kind of gemologist, Jane thinks. Or a surprising thief?
Jane goes into the gallery, thinking that surely the young woman won’t come too.
But of course, she does. It is that kind of day.
The woman is in a long camel coat, cinched around her waist. She is teetering in heels that she doesn’t seem fully comfortable in. She is young. Younger than Jane originally thought. Something about the clench of her face made her appear older. She is probably twenty-three or -four. Just getting started on who knows what. Whatever she wants. Anything.
They are the only two in here, and for a moment Jane senses danger. But it doesn’t alarm her. Mortality, Jane thinks, can only be on the line in one way at any particular time. She is not going to die in here. At least, not yet. And not with her.
Hello, Jane says finally, maybe longing for evidence of her own voice.
Oh, the woman starts, but she stops herself, waves her hands in front of her face, then covers it. She apologizes, turns around, and goes.
Jane laughs out loud.
It is only on the walk home that Jane remembers she promised Abe they could have dinner together tonight, just the two of them.
Of all the nights: okay.
Jane hurries home. She still can and isn’t that a sign of something? She showers, barely registering the water or the light or the walls. She scrubs her body of the doctor’s office smell, rubs it hard with rose water and oil. She puts on fresh clothes, as though she might be going out somewhere.
It has been so long since it’s been just Abe and Jane for dinner. Jane wishes they could do it another night. She isn’t hungry. And that is the least of it.
Downstairs, Abe has already come in, washed up, set the table. The sky outside is gray and leaden; the apartment smells like duck sauce. Jane sits down, slightly nauseated. She forgets to say hi.
Hi, Abe says, focus narrowing his voice.
Sorry, Jane says. Hi.
Jane leans back. She feels she’s lived twelve lifetimes already today. She misses her studio, longs to make something. What is Abe doing? Fussing at the counter, patting his own chest?
Soon, Jane is engrossed in classifying the shape of a magnolia blossom outside the window. It is because of that that she barely registers Abe saying that he needs to talk about something. What does it remind her of, the blossom? A starfish? A muscle, ripped? She cannot sort it.
For the next hour, Max will be at chess practice on Eighty-Fifth, which he seems to enjoy because of how good he is—wildly so, despite his age. Abe’s mother took him. Abe will pick him up when it’s done. They’ll stop for chocolate ice cream. As they do. Jane has long given up on finding a precious ritual with her son. There will be other things, she tells herself.
On the table, in front of her, there is cold white wine, indigo napkins that Jane hand dyed as practice for something large-scale, and Chinese takeout, steaming. Vegetable lo mein, beef dumplings, egg drop soup, broccoli in oyster sauce. She would prefer toast and butter or nothing. Ginger ale or ginger tea or just water.
Does the magnolia blossom remind Jane of hospital gauze? No.
Are you listening, Jane? Abe asks.
I am, Jane says, but the words emerge without effort or consideration.
She is not.
Jane stands up. Do you mind if we go for a walk? she says. She feels like she needs some air. She remembers that she has tucked a pad into her underwear. She is safe. She is not safe. Is it because she knows what he’s about to say or because of what she knows? Either way, she cannot stay here.
And this is the thing about Abe, Jane thinks. He is okay to ditch dinner. Everything he’s done.
Sure, he says. Not a problem at all.
They put on their coats.
They’ve just entered the Park. It is dark but they stay under the lights. There is a loop they’re familiar with, that doesn’t feel threatening. A cop car is stationed at the halfway point and they know the policeman inside.
Tonight, there are birds or maybe bats and it is windier than Jane imagined. Still, the air is restorative, enlivening. Jane has forgotten that Abe had wanted to tell her something.
Okay, he says then, and stops her walking, reining her in by the hand.
What I’m trying to say, he says, and his voice cracks. For a moment, for Jane, there is grace. Jane imagines Abe saying that he knows about the appointment, the pads in the garbage, all the bleeding, the pain. She imagines Abe telling her that everything will be okay, they’ll get through this together. As they have so many things, over so, so many years. That would be very much like Abe, wouldn’t it? And Jane would be open to that, she thinks. She knows.
Why hasn’t she just been honest all this time? she wonders. Why has she suffered so long, so much, without him? How silly. How misguided. It smells like cold and wood and fire. The Park supports and loves them. It has seen them through so much over the years.
Jane rubs her eyes though she isn’t crying. The thought is nearly too much to bear. The surreality of it. The sweetness.
Right, Abe says, then claps his hands once.
It is only then that Jane realizes that Abe has been talking for quite some time now and not about Jane being sick. How long has this sort of thing been going on? Jane wonders. His talking, her on another planet. Weeks? Months? More?
This is fully Jane’s fault. She should have been better. Could have. It occurs to her that it has been so long, Abe’s words filling her brain like day-old oatmeal: nondescript, globby.
She will do better.
There is a bat.
What I’ve been trying to tell you, Abe says again, and clears his throat. And now Jane is ready to be in it with him, to fight for the rest of their lives. They’ll be okay, she thinks. They just need to come back to each other. To get through this together. They can.
…is that for a really short while, it wasn’t even a while really, it was a moment…
Yes, Jane says, and she is about to interject. But Abe’s eyes are closed to her now. He doesn’t hear her. He is focused inside.
There was someone else, he says.
Abe opens his eyes. Jane closes hers. The world stops. The Park.
For a moment, or maybe a hundred moments, it comes to a whirring, whizzing halt. Everything wobbles in response. The trees, Jane’s torso, her brain, the road. She can feel it in her neck but in her spine and throat too, which is instantly sickened. Whiplashed. It is so cold.
Jane’s eyes are magnetized to Abe’s face, which looks as if it’s been struck. His? There is no answer there though it feels like there should be. And what is even the question?
How could you?
Jane’s hands tingle with something she can’t yet name. Violence? Terror? Weakness?
Until this very moment, Jane was sure she’d have to explain her own self. And although she didn’t have any definitive answer yet, she was ready to be in it with Abe. For a second, Jane forgets about her day, the doctor, the nurse, the physical pain—which feels, suddenly, like hers and hers alone.
It occurs to her that at any particular moment, you can only be most alarmed about one thing.
Abe drops his head and shakes it, as if ridding it of a bee or a bad thought. This.
There was what? is all Jane can manage. She wants him to repeat the words for content as much as emotion. She is not sure of what she feels exactly, the exact symptom or cause: a hollowness in her belly, tenderness not like love but like being socked in the throat.
She needs to hear him say the words again.
There was what? Jane says.
She was no one, Abe says.
No one, Jane repeats, parrotlike.
Does Jane imagine the sirens or do they really blare? Where is their policeman? Either way, the world is moments out of sync. There is dust, something, in Jane’s throat. She coughs once.
They should go. Maybe they are in danger.
Abe reaches for her. The ever present instinct to help. Jane backs up. She looks around as if for help, but also, trying to remember what it looked like a minute ago. It is as if someone has come here and rearranged everything. There are new traits, angles, casts of light. Mice? Roaches? There is something perilous, is all Jane knows. Something unsound. How quickly everything feels unsafe.
Jane watches Abe touch his nose. She watches his hands across his hips as if he’s praying but just a little. Jane considers how another woman might see him. He is a writer with merit now. A man who wears khaki and suspenders, gives talks, signs books, crosses his hands across his front in contemplation and, apparently, regret. Who knew? Jane did not.
Did she do this? she wonders. Did she push him too far?
For a moment, it doesn’t matter. Jane longs to tell him about the doctor. Is it habit or desperation that compels a need like that? In a moment like this? Jane has no idea.
I’m sorry, Abe says.
You’re sorry, she repeats.
How much does one miss when one feels secure? Jane thinks. It isn’t self-blame or even a positive lesson. Not now at least. Not yet. Rather, it is a legitimate question that Jane would die for the answer to.
Then Jane’s got it. The magnolia bud at home, she thinks, reminds her of paper, ripped open. The finality of it. The treachery.
Inside, she thinks, there are scribbles like pistils. What do they say? Nothing. Everything.
I was never perfect. You just weren’t paying attention.
That night, when Abe is asleep, Jane goes into the living room. Usually, Abe leaves his briefcase leaning against the leg of the sofa. This, she always knew, she thinks.
Sure enough, it is there. Battered and brown, fastened with a burnished gold lock that is never locked.
Jane leans down, picks it up, is surprised by its weight. Perhaps, she thinks, this is something she should have known too. The weight of the things he bears. Or maybe it’s just her body, giving out. Everything too heavy, too much now.
Jane opens it. Immediately, she is startled by the sound and sensation of something scattering on her feet. She spooks. But when she looks down, it is just four blue pens and one red—not a sea of roaches. Jane nearly laughs out loud. She nearly cries.
Shh, she says to no one, though Abe and Max are solid sleepers. They cannot be disturbed. Abe sleeps more solidly, too, in response to crisis. Ever since Max was born, he sleeps like the dead.
Jane goes over the conversation in her head. There was someone. She was no one. She repeats and repeats the words like an awful song that is stuck. As soon as Abe said the words, Jane knew it had to be one of his students. How? Abe, she is sure, would never seek someone out. He doesn’t have that particular edge in him. Nothing wolfish. Never ever. For years, she has watched his eyes. Also, there are the things you know in your head, and the things you know in your heart.
Inside the briefcase, a yellow envelope, no name.
How does Jane know? She just does.
She carries the envelope upstairs in her arms. She keeps it inches away from her heart as though it were full of lice, or ice. She takes it into her studio, which smells like paint and cold concrete. How she likes it.
Jane closes the door gently behind her. Asylum. She is safe in here. She turns the lock. She sits down on her chair. It is covered with a sheepskin Abe bought for her in Finland on his first book tour. When was the last time he brought her a gift from his travels? Or her him? Things have changed. That is true, though it is not an excuse. For goodness’ sake.
Jane turns on the lamp. She looks out the window as if someone might be watching her. But there are only two lights on in empty rooms, furnished, still and quiet, across the street. No one inside, conspiring.
Who else is feeling this way? Jane wonders. And what are they doing about it?
Jane feels faint. She steadies herself by leaning back against the chair. Is it the sickness or the sentiment? Impossible to know now. Maybe forever now.
Jane is tucked in, legs crossed beneath her, duck-like. Her calves are throbbing a bit—adrenaline, or something else? But she will not stop or be distracted. She is guided by an energy unto itself. It is like searching the house for an intruder. The mystery, the compulsion, the fear of discovering something she never wanted to know.
She opens the envelope. She reads without pause. The writing is not not-beautiful. That is, the writing is lovely. Jane feels like she might throw up.
In the end, the story can only be described as one thing: an ode to Abe. Of course, Jane recognizes him immediately: suspenders, chewing gum, a history professor, as if. His name is Professor Park.
And the woman, apparently, is Ashley. A twentysomething from a broken home in an affluent New Jersey suburb. She has been writing her whole life, unsupported. Until Park.
Jane touches her throat.
In the beginning, Jane reads for clues. Ashley is petite, blond, freckled. She is great at tennis. In one scene, she is wearing a camel coat with a tie that Jane is sure she’s seen on someone recently. Hasn’t she? But today, every day—when did the morning even start?—is an absolute blur. She cannot remember seeing anyone except the doctor, and the nurse. And even then.
And yet, reading this, there is a weird feeling of déjà vu.
It isn’t that Jane recognizes her, Ashley—how could she?—but something about Ashley feels inevitable. Neither lofty nor grand, scripted nor precious. Just small. And fated. The intruder in the tub, behind the curtain.
Boo.
When Jane gets to the end of the story, she drops the pages onto the floor. She cannot help it. They sting. She looks out the window for she doesn’t know how much time. Ashley and Park do not end up together, in the story. But they’ve made such a mark that Jane feels the need to cover her own head and back up against the wall.
When finally, after who knows how long, Jane gets her strength back, she picks up the pages, finds the tiny part about the wife on page seven. There is only one mention of her.
Ashley is in Park’s office on a snowy day when no one else is around. On the desk, a photo of the wife, blurry, black-and-white, with a plant in the background. Nonfiction. It is then that Ashley experiences some level of guilt. Doesn’t she? Or perhaps Jane reads into that. Perhaps this is self-protective, or simply protective.
Jane puts this page on top, exposed, on her chair as she goes to find a needle tool in a desk drawer. She finds it. It is precise, sterile. Useful. She goes back to the page. Jane puts her fingers around the language of herself. Of Jane. And then, slowly, surgically, Jane steadies the tool on the words and slits down the part that hurts her the most. The part about her. The part about doing it despite or maybe because of her. The part about the three of them, then. A hideous triangle.
Jane leaves a mark.
The incision is tiny. It is vital.
Jane takes a step back, admiring her work. A black spider can get through now, she thinks. Or maybe breath. Or maybe the boil can bleed out in this way. Rocks over paper. Shoot.
Jane feels dizzy again. She sits down. She’ll tidy up later. For now, she just needs a moment to settle into things. The plot thickens, she thinks. Or maybe she’s lost the plot. She touches her belly. She tries to feel for unwellness in there. She tries to massage it back to health. As if. She tries to imagine what it looks like, corroded, crooked. The bottom of an old boat. The opposite of youthful. The opposite of new.
Jane’s body is hot—inside and out. It is syrupy. It is weak. And isn’t it something, she thinks, how we can long for something we weren’t even aware of having. Time. Power. Health. Security. For a while. Before.
Jane wonders when she’ll be too weak to feel hate like this, and what it will mean when hate shuts off. She thinks about her mother. Did she ever stop hating? She had to leave her country for her Jewishness. She never saw her own mother again, or her sisters. Jane’s father was a steel blade in a drawer. Cold, if not deadly. He never saw Jane’s mother, really saw her. Never asked questions. What hurts? He never held her in the night; Jane is sure. The agony of that. The preposterousness. Her mother’s body gave up just when things might have gotten better, didn’t it? Jane was just old enough. Her mother could have gotten a job, left. They could have. And what about hoping, Jane wonders. Did her mother ever stop that? And love?
Either way, for now, Jane’s blood boils. She hasn’t been perfect but she has, at least, been honest. And so, she can hold on to this—she is allowed—this feeling for as long as she wants. To not forgive, surrender—but instead, to cut cut cut, make holes, make something while she still can.
Jane Drew This When She Was Able.