“And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain
To tell my story.” —HAMLET, ACT 5, SCENE 2
I toss Ms. Odette’s brochure into the recycling box, careful not to look at the battered girl on the cover. Now all that’s left from the intervention are two empty pizza cartons and the smell of Ms. Cameron’s patchouli perfume. Just as I’m thinking how relieved I am to be alone, someone buzzes from the lobby. I decide not to answer, but whoever it is keeps buzzing.
I drag myself to the intercom.
“Yes,” I say.
“Iris, I need to come back upstairs.” It’s my mom. What can she want from me now?
I sigh into the intercom, then buzz her in.
“I was halfway home when I realized I had to come back,” she says when we’re sitting on opposite ends of Mick’s leather couch. William Shakespeare has come out from under the couch, and now he leaps up onto it, settling himself on one of the zebra pillows.
“That’s William Shakespeare,” I tell her. “He’s mine.”
“He’s beautiful,” Mom says.
William Shakespeare purrs at the compliment.
Mom starts to reach out for my hand, then folds her hands back in her lap. “I’m sorry about tonight, Iris. I know it must have been overwhelming with all of us barging in here the way we did.” She looks around the loft as if she can still see the others. I watch as her eyes linger for a moment on the print of the Bonsecours Market, which I hung back on the wall after everyone left.
“It was pretty bad.”
Mom looks down at her hands. “My parents tried to talk me out of marrying your father.”
“I take it you didn’t listen.” I don’t say what I’m thinking: that if she hadn’t married him, I might never have been born.
“There’s something you need to understand, Iris. I was crazy in love with him.” The words sound strange coming from my mom. Crazy in love? My mom is the least crazy person I know. She might as well have told me she is fluent in Swahili or moonlights as a belly dancer. When she looks up at me, her eyes are misty. “When we were together, the world changed for me. Things came alive in a way they never had before.” Mom smiles a little at the memory. “He wasn’t a bad man, Iris, but he was bad for me. That’s why I had to make him leave. And why I insisted that there be no contact between the two of you. He understood.”
Because I don’t know what to say, I don’t say anything. My father did not abandon me. He wanted to stay in my life, but that would have been too hard for my mom. He respected her wishes. Could that have been his gift to me?
Mom gets up from the couch. “I’m going to get out of your way now,” she says, tucking her purse under her arm. Before she goes, she kisses my forehead.
When I’m alone again, I go to stand by the window. I’m afraid that if I keep sitting on the couch, I’ll hear the voices from the intervention in my head. From up here, the yellow lights from the streetlamps along Cavendish Boulevard make a golden chain.
I think about my mom and my dad. I try to picture them when they were my age. Crazy in love. Not a bad man. But bad for me. I had to make him leave.
What kind of man is Mick? I walk over to the table and pick up my cellphone. It’s after 9:00 PM. Why hasn’t he phoned or texted? He knows I’m waiting for news from him. Maybe the Australian cell-phone network is down. No, that’s a crazy idea. He’ll phone soon. I know he will.
I love him. I always will, even if we’ve had some rough patches. No one can ever talk me out of that. Mick has so many qualities I love and admire—he’s playful, he’s confident, he’s creative. I want to be all those things too. Maybe those traits are somewhere in me too, waiting to come out. Why else would they matter so much to me?
But maybe Mom, Mrs. Karpman, Ms. Cameron, Ms. Odette, Katie and Tommy are on to something. Mick’s not good for me. It’s not good for me that he can’t control his temper. It’s not good for me that he sometimes gets violent. I do worry that even if he wants to change, he won’t be able to. When Mick gets in a dark mood, well, the mood is bigger than he is.
This doesn’t mean I’m going to break off with him forever.
But something’s changed. Something inside me feels as if it’s moved, made room for something else.
For the first time, it feels like I have a choice.
If Shakespeare was right and all the world’s a stage, I should be able to write my own play, shouldn’t I? I should be able to come up with my own ending—and I don’t want to end up like Ophelia.
Ms. Cameron had an affair with Mick, and he hit her too. Just like he must have hit Millicent.
I wish I could talk to Millicent.
Maybe I can.
I do the math in my head. It’s almost 12:30 PM on Monday in Melbourne. What if I email the Victorian College of the Arts at the University of Melbourne and tell them I am trying to get in touch with someone named Millicent Temple? I compose the email message in my head before I key it in.
My name is Iris Wagner. I am trying to reach someone named Millicent Temple. I saw her in one of the promotional videos posted on your site. It is a personal matter, but please tell her it’s urgent. My email is iriswagneractor@ gmail.com; my phone number is 514-207-1212
I press Send before I can change my mind. There, it’s done.
I go to bed before ten. I don’t dream of dark forests or airports. I don’t dream at all.
The vibration of the cell phone on my pillow wakes me. The first four numbers on the display are 613. Melbourne. “Mick!” I say.
“Mick?” a woman’s voice asks. “Is that what this is about? Mick Horton?”
“Millicent?” My hands are shaking. I can’t believe I’m talking to Millicent.
“Is this Iris?” she asks. “I got a message from you. You said it was urgent.”
“Have you seen Mick? Is he okay?”
“I don’t ever want to see Mick Horton again. How do you know him?”
“I—I’m his girlfriend.”
I can hear Millicent suck in her breath.
“What did he do to you?” I ask. Part of me already knows.
But instead of answering, Millicent asks me a question. “Does he hit you?”
I try to say yes, but I can’t.
“He must have, right? That’s why you’re calling me, isn’t it? You need to keep away from him, Iris. I wish someone had told me that. But there was no one to tell me.”
“What did he do to you?” I ask again.
I think I hear Millicent lighting up a cigarette. “He hit me—a lot. Always in my face. The last time was the worst.” Millicent pauses. I hear her take a drag on her cigarette. “I’m blind in one eye.”
I’m crying. But I don’t know if Millicent can hear me, because she is crying too.
When I hang up, it’s four in the morning, and I know I won’t be able to fall back asleep. So I get out of bed, and I start packing up the stolen clothes. After school, I’ll take them back to Forever 21. I’ll leave them on a counter when no one’s looking.
Or maybe I can find a way to tell someone what really happened—how I stole the clothes because I was afraid to stand up to my boyfriend. Because I lost myself, but now I am beginning to find myself again. If this is my story, telling the truth would make a better ending.
When the clothes are packed, I rescue Ms. Odette’s brochure from the recycling box. It isn’t easy, but I force my eyes to meet the girl’s on the cover of the brochure. It’s as if I can feel her pain. And yet she agreed to be photographed. She must have thought it was important to let other girls know what she went through.
I am connected to that girl, and the two of us are connected to Millicent and Ms. Cameron.
I lay the brochure on the table, facing down. I’m not ready to read it yet. Maybe tomorrow I will be.
When my phone vibrates again, I can tell from the 613 number that it’s another call from Melbourne. This time, it has to be Mick. For a moment, my heart leaps, but then it’s as if I can feel it flutter back down in my chest.
I watch as the phone continues to vibrate on the coffee table.
Tender yourself more dearly.
Sometimes a person has to be tough on herself; other times she’s got to be gentle, cut herself some slack. It depends on the situation. Sometimes being tough is the only way to tender yourself more dearly. After you’ve been tough, then you need to be gentle with yourself again.
I don’t answer Mick’s call. When the phone stops vibrating, I turn it off.
Tomorrow, I’ll pack up the rest of my stuff. And I’ll phone Mick and tell him what I’ve decided—that part of me will always love him, that I’ll always be grateful for what he taught me, but that I have to let him go.