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Even while I was left in limbo, everything was moving. And it was moving quicker than one might expect. Erika was involved, after all, and her world moved at a very different pace. But even Stella Maris seemed to be moving at a breakneck speed for a variety of reasons. Like Professor Evory and the fact that literally everyone at my alma mater owed him a dozen or so favors. And the fact that Stella Maris was practically begging me not to back out and throw them to the “proverbial wolves of cancel culture,” as one anonymous university official put it. It was a mess, but it was a mess that settled out in my favor, some would say.
Once the smell of bleach was aired out of the fellowship housing, I was free to move in, and moving in actually wasn’t that hard to do. Because the house was furnished, I didn’t need to pack up anything large or otherwise cumbersome. And back in Chicago, the tiny condo was mine and didn’t have to be vacated for a landlord. Also I didn’t need to book a flight. One of the few lingering passenger train lines in the United States ran from Chicago to Dustford. Tickets on that train were plentiful and cheap. I bought one off my phone just before boarding.
In hardly any time at all, I was on that train again, just like I was in my college days, taking a deep breath and staring out the window of the empty train car. The conductor had already come and gone, checking the few tickets that were waiting for him before disappearing to whatever sanctuary he could call his own. My chest still felt tight, which was to be expected. I was jumping into a fellowship with hardly any notice and running from an ill-thought-out resignation that definitely made me ineligible for rehire. Also my writing life was completely out of my control. The realization that I now had dozens of pieces in the publication pipeline gripped me with an intense terror worse than anything I had known entirely because it promised repeated and prolonged confrontations with my abilities. I didn’t have many, but I had somehow managed to convince everyone I did. And now we were all going to be in for a rather rude awakening as the truth slowly revealed itself. With that batch delivery to Erika, there were so many opportunities to be exposed for a lie I had never meant to tell. And I could do nothing about it.
I audibly exhaled through my teeth. No one noticed. There was only one other soul in the train car who could have paid me any mind, but that young man had headphones in, leaving me alone with my thoughts. Unfortunately, I hardly had any of value despite my need for at least one profound one. I needed it in order to come up with a project, something I could hand over at the end of that year.
I had some time, at least. The university didn’t make any sort of announcement or press release on the matter for a few weeks yet, but even with that time and how simple the task was, I knew I couldn't do it.
I started to swallow my nerves. I was nauseous or nauseated or however you want to describe the perception of vomit rising in your throat, but I swallowed wrong and started choking on what didn’t actually exist. It didn’t feel like a normal cough either. The spasms rippled throughout my entire body before ensnaring my neck and throat. All the muscles in my body tightened until a burning strain set in.
It felt like death. And maybe it was. Or at least the threat of it. If so, that was a very persuasive threat.
By then, the ride was already halfway over, but when the cough finally settled, I took the rest of the trip with an aching throat that held the threat of another coughing spell. My discomfort aside, it was a delicate balance I could hold until I had to gather up my bags. That small burst of physicality was a lowering of my defenses that left me susceptible to another spell. With my next move, the cough washed over me. It rang out from its throne deep within my chest, kicking my heart with every recoil. But I pushed through and felt proud of myself for doing so. After all, I didn’t want anyone to think something was wrong. Nothing was wrong. Or nothing new was wrong, per say.
I wasn’t unfamiliar with this cough. It was something that had plagued me the past decade, and no matter what I had tried, it never fully disappeared. Then again, I had nestled myself comfortably in the lower tier of solutions and cures: the one you can find on moderately acceptable websites that will urge you to seek an actual medical professional at the end of every page of homegrown advice. I didn’t disagree with that insistence. It just didn’t seem like the right thing for me to do as someone who knew exactly what this sort of cough was and how unresolvable it really was.
Really, all I could hope for was the perception of “being fine” as I made my way to see Sr. Agatha: a nun (almost) famous for being able to see through the façades the residents of her dormitory put forth. And I was one of her girls. No matter how far in your life you got away from Penhale Hall and its rector, you were always one of Sr. Agatha’s girls. Even me. And that meant a lot to me.
I didn’t hate my alma mater in the same way some of my peers did, but regardless of where I was in the spectrum of frustration, Sr. Agatha could always make it bearable. She knew how to take the wind out of the pomp and circumstances of Stella Maris that irritated me with its loud calls for acts and performances devoid of real substance. She knew why the rest of us got so frustrated with the administration and how their attempts at outreach only made us angrier. She felt our anger. She didn’t tell us to swallow it down with a spoonful of sugar like other rectors did. I loved her for that and for all that she was.
So of course I was excited to see her, but that excitement was dampened by the conversation about my life that I knew was coming. When we were reunited, Sr. Agatha would ask me any number of well-meaning questions, but they were questions surrounding events and things that I couldn’t really talk about. On one hand, I did–once upon a time–have a day job, but then I quit it, details notwithstanding. I technically had my writing job, but woo boy was that a lot of anxiety. A relationship? Well, she was one of the many people who never liked George. And friends...? That’s a subject to avoid at all costs. Even its mere presence, lurking in the back of my mind, made me wince.
Worse yet would be when she asked the open ended, “What else?” as she earnestly tried to catch up on anything she wouldn’t have known to ask about. I knew she genuinely cared about me, and there’s probably something about the ambiguity of that question that reveals a person’s struggles or needs or concerns. Giving me that question was effectively letting me take control of that conversation, and letting me drive the proverbial car would mean we got to a meaningful destination even if I led us down some backroads or didn’t fit right in the driver’s seat. It was probably the first step of something that I would find healing, but I knew I couldn’t see this journey through to the end, so it was better not to get started.
Psyching myself up for this performance was as good of a distraction as any from the budding mutiny in my chest. In fact, after half a second of that new panic, I forgot all about it. I draped two of my bags across my body and grabbed the other two large rolling suitcases in each hand. By the time I had managed that balancing act, the train was completely empty. Even the conductor was out on the platform, but the platform too was clearing out. And I was the last to take that walk.
As I walked past, I nodded to him: this captured image of a bygone era in his starched uniform and overly groomed appearance.
In return, he smiled at me and asked if I needed help with my many bags.
“No, thank you,” I told him. “I’m meeting someone.”
And I was. Just not the person I had been expecting. It wasn’t the stern but caring Haitian nun at the edge of the parking lot but an older man, tall and almost lanky. His body had thinned out from years of activity. Cycling, skiing, hiking, etc. The one good part of social media was that I saw a lot of it as well as the gradual receding of his hairline. But his smile was the same as it had been. And his eyes were still dark but warm.
“Professor Evory,” I said, breathlessly.
I could hardly believe it was him, but it was. Relief flooded me at the sight not just because my reunion with Sr. Agatha and all its many questions were delayed, but also because I was seeing the one person that never demanded things of me I couldn’t give.
Professor Evory saw me right away, and his face lit up with joy as he reached out to meet me. “It’s so good to see you,” he said.
And I knew he meant it, which was the most important thing. That phrase has become something of a cliché, taking up space in a conversation when the conversant has no other points. But Professor Evory always had something to say. He had a story or anecdote or philosopher’s quote for every occasion. But right then, during this little reunion, those instruments of instruction didn’t matter. His joy did. And so, he was free to bring it up.
Our resulting embrace was warm and lingered for a bit longer than I had expected but not enough for me to feel truly at peace, but I could make do with what he gave me.
“I thought Sr. Agatha was going to come get me,” I said as he reached for one of my bags.
Maybe I should have stopped him, but it seemed like nothing for him to do. He’d helped me with so much worse, with heavier bags that weren’t actually physical but burdens in a very different sense. And he didn’t ask me. He just took it. One for him, and three for me. Not quite fair but something I could handle, and the arrangement I could handle was the best one for us.
“Well, you know,” he said. “Favors and all that.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Who owed who?”
He chuckled. “Okay ,you caught me. I just wanted to see you sooner, so I asked if I could pick you up. Maybe take you for lunch? And catch up? If you want to, of course.”
Of course I wanted to. I had just been in a whirlwind, and Professor Evory was my rock.
In no time at all, we got to his car: a silver sedan that was released a couple years before. It was a basic vehicle, not flashy in the slightest but the definition of practical. It suited him.
He opened the trunk, and I told him not to bother with my bags. I could get them.
“Are you sure?” he asked me, concern palpable in his voice.
“Yeah, I didn’t pack them right,” I confessed.
“That’s why I offered to help.”
I just chuckled. “My sin. My penance.”
I threw the first two bags in with as much ease as you could expect given the poorly distributed weight, but then I felt the air get kicked out of me when I turned to lift the third. The cause of the hit was a mystery, but I knew I had been hit. I felt the focused jab deep into my organs, and I doubled up. The physical sensation and reaction were proof enough that something had happened, even if my eyes couldn’t see an assailant. And in response, my body shut down, my mind went blank, and my lungs clenched. As they collapsed, they pushed out every bit of air within and refused to open again. The lack of breath in my body sent it into a panic. I gasped for any scrap of air I could find. The resulting wheeze cut through the otherwise peaceful small-town afternoon.
Professor Evory was by my side in an instant. “Mia,” he said, nearly pleading with the heavens that I was alright.
His hand came to rest on my back, but there was an uncertainty behind the touch. He didn’t know what to do to help me. And to be fair to him, I didn’t know, either. I just knew I needed to breathe, even if I could no longer recall the mechanics involved.
I tried coughing, trying to force some sort of motion or activity in my chest. When that didn’t work, I struck myself in the chest with the heel of my hand, a crude substitute for an actual medical procedure. But the pain of the hit only mixed with the burn in my chest and added a new layer to my suffering.
While nothing I did helped in any substantial way, gradually, my lungs relaxed, and as they did so, air slowly seeped into them. Each bit was met with another cutting gasp, another slice through the tranquility of the town around us. But I couldn’t bring myself to care about that. I had my priorities. And they were all self-centered.
I took a few tentative breaths, marveling at the sensation I had once taken for granted. “I’m fine,” I choked out.
And I was by some standards. Like how someone who sprints across a football field is “fine” but struggling to breathe while they recover from what they just did. The problem was I didn’t know what I had just done or what had happened.
Professor Evory helped me lean up against his car as I caught my breath.
“I’m fine,” I said again. “I just had a moment.”
He loaded up my two other bags before I could object. Only then did he say, “That doesn’t sound fine.”
“I’ve had breathing problems for a while,” I explained somberly. “It’s not something doctors can fix.”
“Have they tried?” he asked.
Fair but loaded question. I tried to sigh, but given the state of my chest, that wasn’t easy. Professor Evory didn’t know that I had almost drowned as a teenager or that when my uncle pulled me out of the river, the concern wasn’t what my lungs would be like in a decade or more. There was something else to think about and someone else to tend to.
But even if I could have thoroughly explained myself by going into that story, it was a story I had told no one. Not even him.
So instead, I said, “It’s never been that bad. And it might have been an issue with my lifting technique.”
Another cough slipped out, which was not great for my argument, but Professor Evory really had no choice but to do a redirect to focus on what really mattered. “If it gets worse,” he started to say.
“I’ll go to the doctor,” I finished. “But I don’t think I need medical help right now. There are way too many other things going on.”
He nodded and–ever the gentleman–reached for the car door to the passenger’s side. “Well, a hot meal might help with some of those things.”