This Might Hurt(59)

Every day I stood in front of ten people and asked what they were afraid of. I told them we weren’t ashamed of our bruises here. I watched as my students took baby steps toward their own fears. Somewhere along the way I forgot to dread public speaking. I no longer trembled in front of a crowd. I came to like the sound of my voice.

During one class, Jeremiah described his crushing guilt for not being there when his brother died. He’d been in a freak accident, so Jeremiah couldn’t have predicted or prevented it. Still, he was stricken, believing he somehow should have saved his brother. I told him I talked to Mom every morning. I’d asked for her forgiveness over and over until I didn’t need it anymore—I knew I had it. He began to try some of my recommendations, took me aside a few weeks later and thanked me, said they were working. I’d done that. I had eased another human being’s pain.

Every morning I watched the sun rise, every evening it descend. I marveled at how little I had noticed before, how rarely I’d paid attention. One night in particular will stick with me always—the moon was the smallest of slivers, clouds empty of birds. The sun had just disappeared, striping the sky burnt red and cool blue, the hue in between them amber and untouchable. Like a painting, I thought. How had I been lucky enough to wind up here?

Fall arrived. The temperature dipped. I pushed my shorts to the back of my closet. I drained the pool and stored the outdoor furniture in the shed, breathing cold air deep into my lungs. My meals with April and Georgina whittled from five days a week to three to one. I’d forgiven them for gossiping about me to Rebecca—though I still didn’t know which of them had—but couldn’t ignore how often their conversations turned to life beyond the island. They wondered what political news they were missing, debated which app they’d use first when they got their phones back, described the family member they were most excited to hug. They didn’t want to talk about Wisewood, at least not all the time.

Instead I began eating with Jeremiah, who always had a pencil behind his ear and that book of crosswords in his back pocket. In between asking me for the answer to five down and whistling Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face,” he opened up about his divorce, his strained relationship with his deceased father, the weight he’d been struggling to lose since college. As I became closer with him, I got to know the rest of the staff too, members who had been here for years, for whom there was no such thing as life post-Wisewood. While tackling lawn care with me, Raeanne told me the horrors she’d experienced as a child and later as a long-haul trucker, and I began to understand her steely exterior. I watched Ruth fuss over Sanderson, saw how tightly she held him when she thought no one was paying attention, the way his shoulders relaxed into her embrace. As a group we scanned the list of advanced courses, considering what we should take next. I realized with a start that Nat wasn’t chiming in. I hadn’t heard her voice in some time. Mom’s either. It was only me in my head.

Here I woke to the chirps of sparrows instead of sirens. No guns, no viruses, no planes falling from the sky. There was no longer a need for pepper spray or a key between my fingers. I was safe.

My hands were always busy now but my mind was newly quiet. The urge to pull my hair weakened. I tossed my rubber band in the trash. At first my wrist felt off-balance, too free. After a week I stopped noticing its bareness. I remembered Rebecca’s promise during our second session—that soon I wouldn’t need the rubber band anymore. She had been right. The pink scars healed; the skin blended. My hair grew back.

Three months in, she offered to let me use her computer. I could check my e-mail, the news, social media, whatever I wanted. The laptop sat at her desk, beckoning, but I had no urge to answer. What was waiting on the other side? Lapsed insurance notifications, wedding announcements, sleek travel photos posted by strangers I used to admire. You couldn’t swipe left or right on me anymore. What difference did it make that Congress was still gridlocked and Rachel was pregnant with her second? The machinery of the world had kept churning without me, I without it. I told her thanks but no, thanks. Her eyes shone. She pulled a cell phone from a desk drawer, dangled it in front of me, and asked if I’d like to call anyone. A former coworker, perhaps? A neighbor? Natalie?

For the first time in my life, I was content. I had finally stopped reaching for my phone. What could I hope to gain from one call anyway? I had Jeremiah and Raeanne and Ruth and my students, I told her.

I have you, Teacher.





24





Kit


OCTOBER 2019


I STRODE INTO Teacher’s office, a clipboard tucked under my arm, at four o’clock sharp.

“The gutter on the west side of the house has been repaired.” I checked my notes. “Same with dryer number four. Sanderson left to make the grocery run. I reminded him to double up on nonperishables in case the storm is worse than we expect.”

Teacher peered up from the legal pad on her desk. “What would I do without you?”

I warmed at her praise like a lizard on a desert rock.

“As for my students, I think nine of them are ready to move on to intermediate courses.” I turned the page on my clipboard. “Jocelyn is doing particularly well. Yesterday she set a new guest record in the pool—sixty-five laps without stopping.”

“You hypnotize me, you know that?”

After three months here, I had gotten used to the intensity of Teacher’s attention, though it still made my stomach flip.