STELLA SPENT A LONG time making what she called “on the same wavelength” lists, things she could do that might tug Simon and her close again: going for a walk, picking up salmon for dinner, listening to music that they both loved. But as soon as Simon left for work, she looked at the list and knew she didn’t want to do any of those things.
She sat at home, confused. What did she want to do now? What did she like? All she could think of was that she liked drawing—it got her out of herself, out of the confines of her mind. It made her feel more grounded. Not being compelled to draw circles was a relief. Instead, she wanted to draw chairs or fruit or whatever was in front of her. The subjects didn’t matter, just the fact that she could draw them made her feel more capable.
Still, though, the drawings were all for herself. She yearned for a purpose in the world. She yearned to belong. Those were things she had before when she was a nurse. Why couldn’t she go back to that life? The last time Libby had been to visit, Stella knew that she was casually testing her, asking her all these questions about what her favorite restaurant in Chelsea was, checking to see how Stella had progressed on the puzzle Libby had brought her. “You’re halfway there!” Libby said, pleased.
“You know I’m better now,” Stella said, countering, and then Libby changed the subject and began talking about a pair of strappy sandals she wanted to buy.
Stella picked up the phone now and called Human Resources at the hospital. She didn’t really know the people there and had no idea who would answer, but she knew they could pull her file. “So, can I come back to work?” she said.
The guy on the other line sighed. “You need to take more time,” he said.
“No, I don’t. Not really,” Stella said, but he wouldn’t listen to her.
Stella hung up, but she didn’t give up. She kept calling, two days later, and then another two days after that. They always had the same answers. They also told her that they were overstaffed right now, which Stella knew was a lie because what hospital ever had enough nurses?
“I want to go back to work as a nurse,” she told Simon, and he brightened. “That’s a good idea,” he said. “I’ll worry less with you around all those doctors.”
When she told him Human Resources didn’t think so, he told her to call Libby. “She’ll help you,” he said.
“I’ll go see her tomorrow,” Stella said.
THE NEXT DAY, as she walked to Libby’s office, she couldn’t help looking at people’s faces as they passed her in the hospital hallway, diagnosing them on sight. This woman looked anemic, that man clearly had gout. She felt a swell of satisfaction in knowing that her nursing instincts were intact.
She found Libby in her office, and as soon as Libby saw her, she jumped up. “Well, hey, hey, hey, you,” Libby said, hugging her. “Come on in and let me take a look at you.”
Stella noticed the shadows under Libby’s eyes, like stains, the way her shoulders hunched.
“Is everything okay? You want to talk about it?” Stella asked, suddenly concerned.
Libby shook her head. “Everything’s fine. Would you humor me and just let me take your vitals without protest?”
Stella sighed heavily. “Can this please be the last time?”
Libby took Stella’s blood pressure, and then shone a light in her eye. “You’re doing good,” Libby decided. “No memory issues? Motility issues? Any changes?”
Stella grabbed for Libby’s hand. “I’m better than good. The drawings. They help. They really do. Anyway,” Stella said, “this visit. It’s not about the medical stuff. It’s about my mental state.”
“You’re depressed?”
“No, no. I can’t just sit in the apartment. I can’t figure out what to do with myself. Please. Please give me something to do. I know the hospital won’t let me do actual nursing yet, but I could volunteer, couldn’t I? I could do all the jobs the other nurses don’t have time for. You know I could—”
“Oh, Stella, I—”
“I want—I need—to be useful. I can do this, Libby. I really can. And you know I’m good at it. Please.”
Libby was silent for a moment. “It can’t really be nursing,” Libby said.
“I know that. At least not yet.”
“And it might be menial.”
“I’ll wash floors. I’ll empty bedpans.”
“I don’t know,” Libby said, shaking her head.
“Yes, you do. There’re all sorts of jobs a hospital needs to be done, and you don’t even need to be smart, which I am, to do them. I can be a patient courier and take them for CAT scans or MRIs. I can deliver lunch trays and then take them away. How can I possibly screw that up?”
“Let me see what I can do,” Libby said. “Maybe it would work a few hours a day. Maybe it would be good for you, too.”
“It will be,” Stella said. “I promise.”
“We’ll have to see,” Libby said.
TWO DAYS LATER, courtesy of Libby, Stella had a job. She’d be working in the nursery, cradling babies. Strictly volunteer work and most definitely part-time. “Will you be bored?” Libby asked her. “You can wait for something else.”
“I’ll take anything,” Stella said. She wasn’t sure how she felt about working with babies. She had wanted them so much at one time, and that time was over now.
Maybe she didn’t know how she felt about being around infants, but being back in the hospital was a totally different thing.
Her first day of work, she bounced into the hospital in her scrubs. (“Well, look at you!” Simon had said when she came into the kitchen that morning. “That’s the Stella I know and love!”) Her scrubs were freshly washed and even ironed because today felt so special. She grinned wildly at the doctors she passed, the other nurses. These are my people, she thought. Libby had found her volunteer work for now (for now!), cuddling babies in the nursery, under the eye of another nurse. Sure, it wasn’t what she usually did, and it was only for a few hours, three days a week. It wasn’t even on her usual floor, but it was something. It was a start. She would show them she could do this and they’d gradually let her do more until she was back to work for real.
As she entered the maternity ward, she remembered that this was where she first met Simon. Maybe that was an omen. She walked to the nursery and there was Libby, waiting for her. But as soon as Libby saw her, she gently shook her head. “You have to wear real clothes,” Libby told her. “Street clothes. You’re not officially here as a nurse.”
“Oh,” Stella said. Libby must have seen the slump of Stella’s shoulders because she touched her hand. “But for today, this is okay,” Libby said. She handed Stella a stick-on badge to wear, volunteer, with her name and the date printed underneath. “You get a new one each time you come in,” Libby said.
Stella looked around. There was one other nurse here, someone she didn’t know, feeding a baby. The hospital liked babies to be with the moms in their rooms—“rooming in,” they called it—so there were only a few infants swaddled in bassinets, which decreased her chances of screwing up. She knew she was only a volunteer cuddler, but what if she couldn’t even do that? She nodded at everything Libby was telling her. Libby showed her where the burp cloths were. Vomit, she heard. Diapers. Pumped breast milk. Formula. It didn’t sound hard, but it didn’t sound as satisfying as the work she used to do with patients, tending their wounds, using her mind.
“Feeding and growing. That’s what they do,” Libby said. She pointed out the crack baby waiting for his mom to get out of rehab. “His name is Raymond. He needs kangaroo care,” she said. “Skin-to-skin contact takes care of so many ills.” She showed Stella another infant who was there because her mom was ill. “So you’re all set,” Libby said. “You have any questions, Laura is right here.” She nodded at the other nurse.
“I can do more than just hold them,” Stella offered.
“No, you can’t,” Libby said. “Really, I mean it. Listen to what I’m saying.” She looked very serious, but she gave Stella a hug. “I’ll be back later. Maybe we can go grab lunch,” Libby said.
The first baby Stella held was a little girl named May, a blue-eyed doll, a preemie whose mother was what the nurses called a semi-crunchy mom. The crunchy moms were the ones who insisted on everything organic, on cloth diapers because they were better for the environment, on breast milk and attachment parenting. They drove some of the nurses crazy. But May’s mom was only semi-crunchy, because she used formula instead of breastfeeding. May seemed to sleep through everything. She snoozed through the story Stella recited, didn’t rouse when Stella sang or rubbed a bottle against her lips. Sometimes, when she needed to, Stella made circles on May’s back, so if Laura looked over, she’d think Stella was comforting the baby. It calmed both of them. Stella liked the weight of May in her arms. She found herself marveling at May’s tiny nose, at the sounds she made, soft growls and burbles.
The next baby she held was Raymond, and as soon as she lifted him up, he arched his back and his neck, pulling away from her. He flapped his arms at the bottle she offered. He looked pained when she sang to him, and then he cried, a noise high and shrill, like a wild bird. She tried everything, talking soothingly to him, rocking him, even whispering “please.” He peed all over her and threw up his milk on her shoulder and then screamed for more of his bottle.
His brain, like hers, had also transformed, his because of the crack. And it was sadder for him because he had never had a real chance to know what a properly wired brain felt like. He never had a clue about who he really was. “I know how you feel, honey,” she crooned to him. Maybe that was why he made her feel afraid.
A week later Stella came in and found that May was gone, and suddenly Stella felt all the air around her constricting. “Well, you don’t expect her to live here now, do you?” Laura said. But the truth was that Stella actually did. She had gotten used to May, had begun to feel comfortable holding her. She loved the baby’s scent, those sweet blue eyes. It was the perfect setup—an hour with Raymond, who never relaxed in her arms, who always seized up, followed by the soothing slumber of May. “There’s still Raymond,” Laura told her, pointing to Raymond’s bassinet. His little face was screwed up like a clenched fist and he was angrily flapping his hands.
As difficult as he was, she couldn’t help feeling for him. It was easy to love babies like May, who were no more trouble than a doll, who grabbed for your finger and liked to be tickled. But wasn’t it worth more to love the troubled baby, the one who could learn to be happy if only someone would show him how? “You spoil Raymond,” Laura told her. “But keep doing it.”
She had new babies to tend to, which meant more monitoring from Laura. Every once in a while, Libby dipped her head in, took a quick glance, smiled at Stella, and then left. Why did Libby have to check on her? she wondered. Wasn’t it enough that Stella triple-checked everything she did? She went over and over the names on the baby bassinets. She made sure she didn’t feed one mother’s colostrum to another’s baby. She was extra careful with Raymond because she was terrified he might squirm out of her arms. Babies could do that, and a fall could fracture their skulls. She wished there were a chart monitoring her progress. She wished she could relax, that her mind would stop stumbling. She felt so restless at the end of each day, like she hadn’t really done anything, like she hadn’t really mattered. A trained monkey could do my job, she thought.
When she was done each day, she took off her volunteer badge and walked through the hospital corridors. She didn’t feel like a nurse anymore, maybe because she had to wear her own clothes instead of the scrubs. Maybe because no one gave her that look of respect anymore. Here, now, she could be anyone. She came home without all the funny stories she usually had, because the truth was, nothing much of note happened in the nursery. Some days, she felt like she could drift into a milky sleep along with the babies. But she told Simon that she worried about whether she had done a good job. There were all sorts of mistakes that could happen. She might not notice that a baby’s pulse was thready or the eyes were misaligned. How hard would it be to screw up simple cuddling? All she was doing was holding these tiny living things. Tomorrow, she’d look closer at the babies she held.
“You can do this,” Simon said.
When she went to the hospital on Friday, she had some soft toys for Raymond, black-and-white rubber, the colors infants could see. She knew the hospital wouldn’t reimburse her, but she didn’t mind using her own money. She wanted to do this. She was hopeful he could respond, his peanut face turning sunny. But when she got to the nursery, his bed was empty. His name tag gone. She gripped the edge of his bassinet. “Where’s Raymond?” she asked Laura.
“His mom got out of rehab. She took him home.”
“What? But he won’t thrive there . . .” Stella helplessly held up the toys. “I thought these might make a difference.”
Laura took the toys. “The other babies will love them,” she said. “Don’t look so worried. Raymond’s mom will be checked up on. And so will he. Anyway, it’s not our business anymore.”
Stella’s stomach hurt. She loved the calm babies, the little ones who were here just so their moms could get some rest. But missing Raymond felt like a vacuum was growing inside of her. She could have helped him. She knew she could.
She tried to concentrate on the other two babies now in the nursery, the feel of them wriggling in her arms. They slept and fed and looked a little bored, but she realized, with a shock, they were no more bored than she was herself. At the end of the day, she smelled like spit-up, and when she lifted her arms to her nose, she swore she smelled like baby, which made her smile.
After work, she walked the hospital halls and looked into rooms. In one, she saw a patient, an old man with a grizzled face, throw a cup at a nurse. “You goddamn Nazi!” he shouted, and the nurse calmly picked up the cup and smiled, just the way nurses are supposed to, because agitating patients could raise their blood pressure. Stella walked around the hospital, and she was surprised to realize she didn’t love it anymore, not the waves of people, not the patients peering out from their rooms, the confident strides of the doctors. Certainly not the antiseptic smell, the dizzying scents from the flowers in the rooms. She passed two doctors debating cardiac arrest treatments and swerved away from them. It used to thrill her, all that medical talk. She used to want to know more and more and more, but now she just felt numb, as if all her passion for medicine had left her.
The next day in the nursery, she had just settled a baby for a nap when Laura said her name sharply. “Stella!” She turned and Laura was picking up the baby she had just placed down. “Stomach sleeping is a SIDS risk factor,” Laura snapped.
Stella froze. She knew that. Certainly she knew that, just like every nurse on the planet knew that, everyone who had ever been or wanted to be a mother, but even so, she had settled the baby on her stomach anyway, and then she had walked away. She fought back tears, crumpling onto a chair.
“Good God, don’t get upset. It’s fine,” Laura said, coming closer to Stella. “There’s no harm done. Just remember it for next time. That’s all.”
Stella stood up, her body shaking. She could write directions for herself on her arm, or on a piece of paper, but she could never be sure that she would remember, and she would always worry. Who was she to think she could do this job? And did she even want it anymore? She went through the motions the rest of that day. She walked back to the nursery and Laura looked up at her expectantly, and as soon as she did, Stella knew: she couldn’t be a nurse anymore. The desire she had for it was gone. “I think I’d better go home,” Stella said quietly.
Laura took both Stella’s hands in hers. “Why? We need you here, Stella.”
If she told Laura she didn’t want to be a nurse anymore, Laura would try to convince her to stay. “I fucked up,” Stella said. “No one needs that.”
“You think I haven’t screwed up myself?” Laura said.
“You’re being kind.”
“I’m being practical.”
But Stella knew that she wasn’t coming back, and as soon as she thought that, she felt some weight lifting inside of her.
By the time she got home and into the apartment, her cell phone was ringing. The first call was from Libby, assuring her that what had happened was no big deal, but all Stella could think was, How did Libby find out?
“Did Laura tell you?” Stella asked.
“Laura told me she needs you—that you were doing a good job,” Libby said.
“I don’t feel right coming back,” Stella said. “And if it’s no big deal, why did she tell you?”
“Listen,” Libby said. “You were such a great nurse, the best I ever worked with. I could always count on you.”
Were, Stella thought, and then hung up. The phone rang again, and there was Simon. “Oh, babe, I’m sorry,” he said. How did he know what had happened? Who had told him about her, and did that mean that everyone knew? Were they all talking about her?
“Who told you?” she said.
There was a moment of silence. “I came to the hospital to pick you up,” he said. “I ran into Libby.”
“Right,” she said, a headache sprouting over her left eye.
“Honey, I’ll be home soon.”
Great, she thought. She felt tense with anxiety, as if all her neurons were firing. She had to do something physical. Simon used to run, but she had always hated it. It gave her stitches in her side. It seemed pointless to her, too, covering all that ground, just to end up years later with knees so damaged that you had to get them replaced. But now, somehow, the mindlessness of it seemed like a plus to her. Simon had always told her that running cleared his head, that sometimes if he was having trouble with a song, with a particular piece of music, he’d get the answer as soon as he got into the endorphin zone.
She put on shorts and a tank top and laced up her sneakers.
She ran in the city, heading uptown, dodging people, going faster and faster, bobbing and weaving like a prizefighter. The air was soggy with heat, but she liked it. Her sneakers slapped the ground. Her breathing had a rhythm like music. She looked up and wanted to kiss the sky. She took the A train up to Seventy-Second Street and ran in Central Park, swerving onto a trail that was empty and rocky, the thorny bushes smacking against her body. No one was around. She realized that here she could be mugged or killed or raped, and that pure sharp thrill of danger felt like medicine, and she found it exhilarating. She had moved back onto the city streets when she saw Simon’s car, and she started to wave at him, jolted with happiness. But then she saw that he had two passengers in his backseat, two young girls. He looked so unhappy that Stella couldn’t bear it. She turned down another street and kept running until she was back in the park again.
She was practically flying now, running so fast that when she zipped by another runner she accidentally knocked the phone from his hands. “Hey!” he shouted. She heard his steps slow, turned and saw him crouching down, picking up his phone. She kept running, alone on the path. Then she heard a different voice, like a caw. Wait up, cupcake! Wait up! She heard footsteps behind her and she turned, and a guy in jeans and a baseball cap pulled over his face was gaining on her. Cupcake, he shouted, huffing. And then: Cunt. Pay attention to me when I’m talking to you. She ran faster.
No one was going to hurt her. Not now. She pushed harder. I can do this. I can do this. The sweat fell into her eyes and she shook it off and ran faster. Her shirt was pasted to her skin. Sprinting, she veered back toward the street, among people, but suddenly she stumbled, falling hard on the sidewalk and scraping her knee. She scrambled to her feet and twisted around. There was no one coming after her. “Hey, you okay?” a man in a suit said, offering her his hand to help her up. “I’m fine,” she said, but the man frowned. “You don’t look fine to me,” he told her, and she shook her head, thanking him, moving on, feeling him standing there, watching her. But when she turned back around, he wasn’t there anymore. Had she imagined him?
She walked until she got to a drugstore. She leaned against the building wall, catching her breath, and then she felt it: the thrill. A release like a jet breaking a sound barrier, zooming higher and higher into the sky. The air on her skin felt like fingers caressing her. Her heart thrashing. When she looked around, colors seemed so vivid she thought she could almost eat them. Sounds were like fireworks. A baby’s laugh rang like bells. A woman shouting made Stella feel like a knife had flashed close to her. Her mouth opened in wonder. She heard everything, everything, all at once, streaming through her.
There it was. Life! And it was amazing.
“OH MY GOD, I was so worried . . .” Simon said when she entered the apartment. She looked at her watch. Eight o’clock. How had she managed to use up so much time? Her clothes were dry by then but rumpled, and there wasn’t anything she could do about her hair. Simon was pacing, the phone in his hand. “I called and you didn’t answer. Then I realized you’d left your phone in the bedroom.”
“I had a run,” she said, triumphant. “The way you used to.”
He squinted at her. “But you hate to run.”
“I love it now.”
“Is that okay for you to do?”
She stretched. “I feel incredible,” she said. “Strong.”
“Next time, feel amazing with your phone. Please. Or let me come with you.”
“You’d come with me?”
“I would love to.”
All that evening, through dinner, through the movie Simon put on, a comedy she couldn’t really follow, about a couple who made a pact to kill themselves if they weren’t married in a year, she felt this glorious ache rippling through her. Simon, laughing, touched her hand, and she looked over at him and made herself laugh, too. She thought about running again tomorrow, faster this time. Much faster. There it was. She had a goal.
AT FIRST, SHE felt thrilled that she and Simon were going to run together. When they were first dating, she used to love it when he took her hand and kissed her, not just because she loved the warmth but also because she felt like the people around her were her witness. They would look at her and think, Isn’t it wonderful that that woman is loved so much? She must really be something special.
Now, though, when Simon took her hand, she felt tethered. “Can’t run holding hands,” she told him.
They went to Central Park, and as soon as Simon started running, Stella felt irritated. He was going so slowly. She sprinted ahead of him and then heard his steps quickening, but when she turned off the main trail, he called, “Stella!”
She turned around.
“Why don’t we stay on the main trail?” he said.
“This one’s more fun.”
“Humor me,” he said.
She continued to run, but she didn’t feel that adrenaline rush anymore, and whenever she sped up and was just feeling it begin to build, Simon would shout to her, telling her to slow down, to stop, to wait for him, and the delicious moment was gone.
They had run for only a half hour when Simon stopped, panting. “I’m sorry, baby. I have to get to work,” he said.
“I can finish on my own,” she said.
But he looped his arm around her. “Come on home with me.”
AFTER THAT, SHE did her running when he was away. When he got home and asked her if she wanted to run with him, she would shrug and lie: “I don’t like it that much anymore.”
Oh, but she did. She would run fast and far, for an hour at least. She ran along the emptiest paths in the park, because she felt so fueled by the danger. But more than that, she felt invincible. The worst had already happened to her, so she was safe now. She came home dripping with sweat, her hair pasted to her head. Happiness thrummed inside her.
One night, she was running and suddenly found it harder than usual to reach the peak point, to feel truly, excitedly alive. She tried running faster, but that didn’t do it. She ran along a rocky path, dangerous because she could have fallen, but still she felt something was missing.
No. Don’t do this to me. I need you.
She slowed down into a jog. She felt the sheen of sweat on her body, the damp drip of her hair tickling her shoulders. The lump of terror loosened, even if it wasn’t replaced with joy. She’d go home. She’d try again tomorrow. Maybe this knot of disappointment would lift then, because if it didn’t, she didn’t know what she would do.
She got out of the park and onto the streets again, walking past a gourmet food store, and then a cafe filled with people holding up glasses to clink, throwing their heads back to laugh. She turned down another street and passed Mickey’s Bar, a squat little place blaring a bad loop of eighties hits through the open door. Stella slowed and looked through the smudgy window. She knew that the only kind of people who went there were the sad drunks, the people who started drinking at two in the afternoon. Even the bouncer looked worn down. A woman with a slash of red lipstick was swirling a swizzle stick into her glass, staring at the back door. A man in an expensive-looking suit was slumped at the corner, a hat pulled down over his face, so she couldn’t tell if he was young or old. Then she heard a Madonna song, and she remembered how for a moment, when she was emerging from the coma, she had seen Madonna in her hospital room. Maybe it was a sign. Madonna would go into this bar. She would own the place. Stella walked in the door. Everything smelled of alcohol and she knew she would smell of it, too, when she left, that Simon would ask her about it, but so what.
The man in the hat looked up so she could see his face. Younger than she was, but not young. There were deep grooves by his mouth, crinkles circling his eyes. He took off his hat so she could see his thick dark hair, or maybe he was just being gentlemanly. He nodded at her and sat up straighter. He patted the empty barstool next to him, red plastic with a rip on the side.
There was a raw pull in Stella’s stomach. Her heart started to race. This wasn’t like her, not this place, and not sitting next to a strange man, but she couldn’t help it.
She eased herself onto the plastic stool. The man turned and took her in. She made her hands into fists so they wouldn’t shake. She must look ridiculous, in her old shorts and tank top, her sneakers and wet hair. “Gin and tonic,” she said to the bartender. Her voice sounded shaky to her and she willed it to still. The bartender slid the drink in front of her and she took a sip. The glass clicked along her teeth. The drink was sharp and she wasn’t sure she liked it. She pushed the glass away to the edge of the bar.
The man beside her was drinking something dark and muddy looking. “What’s that?” she said, pointing.
“You’re soaking wet,” he said, glancing at her sneakers, her running shorts.
She felt his gaze on her, like a hot breath. He moved closer and tilted his drink toward her.
“It’s a Fireball,” he said. “It takes you by surprise. A little innocent-looking thing like that, and boom—it explodes.” He smelled like stale coffee, but he had Simon’s gray eyes. He watched her.
“What’s your name?” the man said. “I’m Tom.”
“Brenda,” she said. “Brenda LeFay.”
“What do you do, Brenda LeFay?”
She could say anything. She could be anyone. “I’m an engineer,” she said, and he laughed.
“Doesn’t that beat everything,” he said. “So am I.” He tipped his glass into his mouth, and she felt herself hyperventilating. She didn’t need to be in this bar, with this man, in this moment, but she didn’t want to go home either, where Simon would look so worried that she wouldn’t be able to relax. She didn’t want to think about tomorrow either.
“Can I have a taste, Tom?” she said, surprising herself, and then she felt her whole body vibrating harder and harder. She couldn’t help it. She had to do it. She leaned toward him and kissed his mouth, soft and sharp with alcohol. A match lit inside her. Another kiss and it would be a flame. She wanted to run out the door and never come back. She wanted to brush her breasts against his arm. What would it feel like to be with a stranger? This isn’t me. This isn’t me.
This is me.
She took his glass and drained it, felt the fire spread in her mouth. He put some bills on the table. “Let’s get out of here,” he said quietly.
THEY BOTH WALKED fast, neither one of them talking. There were plenty of people in the street, so she could easily pivot away from him if she had to. She could call for help or grab someone’s arm, or she could simply take flight because she could easily outrun a guy like him. But when she thought about doing that, the flare inside of her dimmed and sputtered. She was sweating now, and everything in her ached toward him, and the more danger she felt, the better she liked it.
They turned down a quiet street and she couldn’t help it as she pushed him gently to the wall, her face lifted to his. His hands flew up. “Not like that,” he told her, grabbing her hand, taking her forward to a building, to a doorman in a uniform, all spit shine and braided epaulettes. The doorman opened the door for them. “Good evening, Mr. Cohen,” he said. He looked at Stella. “Good evening, miss,” he said.
She was a person now. She was Miss.
They took the elevator, six flights up, then walked down a shiny marble hallway. His apartment was right at the end, and when he opened the door, he held out his hand. “Ta-da,” he said. His place was huge, with glass and steel tables, a black leather couch. Real art on the walls.
“Can I get you a drink?” he said, and she pressed her mouth against his. She let him pull her down to the floor.
There was a roaring in her ears. She kissed his mouth again and tightened her arms about him like she wanted to put her whole self inside of him and come out someone different. He started to unbutton his shirt, but she ripped it open, the buttons scattering on the floor. She grabbed his hair, grabbed his tie, and she felt herself flying outward. She rolled on the floor to the wall, taking him with her. She was invincible now. A goddess. A rush stormed through her, a kind of lightning.
AS SOON AS it was over, she felt sick. How could she have done this? What was the matter with her? All these years, she’d been faithful, but now . . . She didn’t feel invincible anymore. She felt like a whore. She looked at this man, at his craggy face, the way his mouth was open. She got up and put her clothes back on, her stomach roiling.
“Let me get your number,” he said. “I think we could be good together.”
She was faster than he was. She got out the door and headed for the stairs, taking them two at a time until she got to the bottom. She threw the door open, and there was the friendly doorman, only this time he didn’t look so friendly. He gave her a fish stare. She threw open the front door, gasping in the cold air. And as soon as she was on the street, she vomited.
SIMON WASN’T HOME when she got there, so she peeled off her clothes and saw the rip in her shorts, which made her hot with fury. She stuffed them in the trash and then put the trash in the incinerator. She took a shower so long that it pruned her skin.
She sat down on their couch, listening to her heart slow, nauseated with shame. She hadn’t hurt anyone. She hadn’t stolen anything. If anyone was the loser in this, it was her.
It was just adrenaline, she told herself. It was the reason that people bungee-jumped or parasailed or climbed mountains without ropes or stepped on a high wire across two towers. The reason that she had run and run and run. You could get addicted to it, she knew that, and you had to count the cost. At the hospital, patients came in with their bodies shattered from racing on motorcycles, from leaping off cliffs. It made you feel alive, and that was why she had done it.
She wouldn’t do it again. Instead, she got out some paper and began to draw circles, as if she were hypnotizing herself. It didn’t work to relax her. She looked up at the window and began drawing the frame, the blinds, but her breathing still felt ragged. When Simon came in, he smiled. “Don’t you look lovely,” he said. She tried to smile back.
She lasted a week without going out again, prowling for men. She spent mornings going through the want ads, trying to find something she could do. She looked for courses online, training for a new career, but nothing really grabbed her. She didn’t want to work with computers, didn’t want to learn photography, and just the idea of teaching frightened her. One morning, she decided to run again. Maybe she’d pass some stores with HELP WANTED in the window. Maybe something would happen. It sometimes did when you started small. She could manage a store, maybe. Too bad no one would pay her for drawing.
She was in Midtown when she walked past a cafe and saw a man standing there, the white lab coat jolting her, making her dizzy. She felt switched on and she started to walk toward him, but then she tripped hard on the sidewalk, banging her knee, wincing in pain. “Hey, you okay?” he said, and then he crouched down beside her, his hands on her knees.
“Just bruised,” she said. “Nothing broken.”
“You should let me dress it,” he said. He nodded at the building. “I live just upstairs,” he said. And then she knew what was going to happen next.
His apartment was all glass windows and burnished wood floor. He was younger than she was, with thick dark hair and a lean build, and she was glad that he didn’t seem to want to talk, not about himself or her or anything. “Hang on,” he said, shucking off his lab coat and walking into another room, coming back with antibiotic cream, a bandage, and a hand towel. He kneeled in front of her, carefully wiping her knee, dotting it with cream and then covering it with a bandage. She put one hand on the top of his head and he locked eyes with her. Then she tilted her face to his, bent down, and kissed him. He led her into a room on the far end of the apartment, a bed with a carved-wood headboard. “Let me,” he said, sliding off her running shorts and pulling up her top. He lowered her to the quilt. He took his time undressing himself, and then he took his time with her, kissing the curve of her hip, her breast. But she got on top of him and pushed him inside of her. She shoved her hair from her face and then, there, in the hallway, she heard footsteps.
She looked up, astonished. There was a little girl in footed pajamas, her thumb in her mouth. He had left her here alone while he went out.
Stella froze. “What,” the man said, and then he looked up and saw the girl, too, and shoved Stella off him onto the floor. Her hip hit against the wood floor and she braced herself up on one elbow.
“Daddy,” the girl said, her voice rocketing. “I had a funny dream. I don’t want to sleep anymore.” The girl looked at Stella. “Hi,” she said. “Who are you? Do you have to nap? Do you hate it, too? Do you like stories?”
The man grabbed for his pants, jerking them up. He threw on his shirt and strode to his daughter, crouching so he was at her level, smoothing her wild riot of black hair. “Come on, sweetie, I’ll read you a story,” he said. He looked over her head at Stella, his face blank.
She could hear him talking to his daughter as he led her back to her room. The little girl kept turning around to stare at Stella, but her father kept pulling her back. You had a dream. That’s all it was. It isn’t real. Daddy was just too warm so he took his clothing off. No, no, that lady is just a visitor and she’s leaving. Yes, Mommy will be home soon. Mommy will be home.
He hadn’t worn a wedding band. He didn’t have a stripe of paler skin where one might have been. Stella heard a peal of childish laughter. There was a little girl who might innocently tell her mommy about her. The marriage might collapse, and it would be her fault. Stella pulled herself up and stumbled to the sink, her stomach heaving, bile rising in her throat. Her skin was glossed with sweat. In the other room, the man was singing to his daughter.
She dressed and strode to the door, and then she saw it, by the entrance, a big photo she had missed before. There he was at the beach, in a swimsuit, his arm slung around a handsome blonde woman, the little girl standing in front of them, making a silly face. There was a date on it. Two months ago. “Forgive me,” she whispered.
She cried when she got outside. The sky was already darkening, and looking at her wrist, she realized her watch was missing. It must have come unhinged when she fell. Was it still on the sidewalk, or did she lose it at his apartment? Either way, she wasn’t going to retrace her steps. She’d have to lie if Simon asked about it, say she lost it and didn’t know where. Maybe the guy would find it and throw it out. Or maybe he’d give it to his daughter. A big-girl watch. A prize for being so good.
When she got home, Simon was cooking something that smelled like curry. He leaned in to kiss her. “Where were you?” he asked.
She laughed, like a bark. “Oh, just walking around,” she said. Then, to distract him, she told him how delicious dinner smelled. “I’m starving,” she said.
THAT NIGHT, SHE bolted up from sleep. Simon was snoring beside her, one hand thrown over his face, his hair ragged, needing a cut, something she used to do but wasn’t sure she could do now. She kept seeing that little girl, her pajamas with the zebra pattern. The images exploded in her head. She went to the kitchen and got a piece of paper and a pen. Her hand flew across the page. She was someplace else. Not in this room and not in her head anymore. Suddenly she wasn’t just drawing for herself, soothing herself, making sense of the world. She had this feeling that she was doing this for someone else, and that made it bigger, more dangerous.
She kept drawing, in a fever, and then she stopped, panting, her eyes focusing like lasers.
There, on the page, was the little girl in her pajamas, and her eyes were looking right into Stella’s. Stella looked closer and gasped. She knew she had been getting better at drawing, but this was something different, something new. This was a drawing so good that it seemed alive. How could she have done this? But more than that, she felt that she could see inside that little girl now and understand what that child was feeling, because Stella was feeling it, too. The girl’s eyes were haunted. This little girl was lonely, scared and shy, and the more Stella looked, the more she felt she knew what was going on in that apartment, and most of it was terrible. Everything felt clear, like a piece of cellophane wrapped around her and the girl both.
She felt her body trembling. What was she supposed to do with this? She couldn’t go back to that man’s apartment and accuse him because the only thing she had proof of was that he had left his daughter alone in the house. Authorities would think she was crazy.
Stella shut her eyes and put her hands over the drawing. Be okay, she whispered to the little girl, making it a blessing.
STELLA, DESPERATE, UNABLE to stop thinking about her drawing of the little girl, tried something new. She joined the local gym and began running there, and swimming, too, everything fast and sometimes furious. It wasn’t the same as running in the city down those dark paths in the park, or picking up a man and inhaling him, using up the tension like a cigarette. But it was something.
One day in the water, she was deep under the surface, her eyes open behind her swim goggles. For a minute she felt as if time had turned a page, that she was in her old life, her old coma, trapped and terrified and haunted, swimming in an element she didn’t understand, hearing noise bubbling around her, dragging her down. Her heart scuttled in her chest. She couldn’t breathe. Panic stung her and she felt herself crying. You cannot win over me. You can’t make me afraid.
She shoved herself forward, moving under the water until it started to feel familiar, like she was back in the comfort of that other world. She bolted up to the surface.
She looked around. There were only three other people in the pool, an old man wearing a red bathing cap who was slowly doing laps and two teenagers who were horsing around in the shallow end. No one noticed her.
She drew in another breath and sank to the bottom of the pool and then rose up. She did it again and again, until she wasn’t scared anymore. Until she was laughing, filled with joy. I did this. I did this. I did this.
IN AUGUST, SHE began to regularly take her sketch pad and pens to the park. She sometimes sat in the Sheep Meadow, other times by Bethesda Fountain. It took her a while to relax, but then she felt the pull of one person, and then another, like a kind of force field urging her to take notice. She began to tentatively draw again, people this time. Don’t be frightened. Go with your gut.
She watched a young woman with a baby, on a bench opposite her, and she began to stealthily draw, until, like always, she felt in the zone, as if her hands were moving on their own.
When she finished, she looked down at the drawing.
This woman was happy. Stella’s breathing began to even. The baby was happy, too. The only negative thing she saw and felt in the woman’s face was lack of sleep, a toppling exhaustion.
She looked up and saw the woman looking at her, and then the woman plucked up her baby and wandered over to Stella. “Why, that’s us,” she said, amazed.
“You need more sleep,” Stella said, then hastily apologized. “I need to mind my own business.”
“But you’re right,” the woman said. “I do need more sleep.” She looked down at the drawing again. “It’s like you got inside me, like you read my thoughts,” the woman said. “Can I buy this?”
“You can have it,” Stella said, handing her the drawing. “Especially if it makes you happy.”
STELLA FOUND HERSELF drawing in the park more and more. People began to ask her to draw them, but she would sketch only the people whom she was drawn to, as if they had a message they needed to get out and she could be the conduit to help them see it. There had to be that feeling, that connection.
She still didn’t know how and why she could do it, only that she could, and it astonished her as much as it did the people around her. They began to insist on paying her. “Whatever you want,” she told them, and they began fluttering twenties at her, and then fifties.