Lying on the bed, I tried to sleep, but my muscles ached and my head was spinning—and I didn’t want to sleep, because I felt the opposite of tired.
So I took a bath in the bathroom down the hall. I made the water as hot as I could bear it, thinking to sweat out whatever was still in me from the night before. I was meticulous. I pried out all the dirt that had collected under the nails of my toes and fingers, I scrubbed the soles of my feet raw trying to get rid of all the yellowed mud caked in the creases. I picked pine needles from my hair, and they floated like miniature felled trees on the meniscus of the tub water. Sap knotted my hair in places, and I had to wash it three times in scalding water before I could dig out the coagulants with a plastic comb.
There was a knock on the door.
“Merry Christmas, little Lumen!”
“Merry Christmas,” I called back.
“You’re up bright and early. Ready for presents?”
“I’ll be down in a minute.”
I stood, dripping dry on the bathmat. Wiping the mirror clear of condensation, I looked at the girl I saw there. Judging by her looks, her scrubbed pinkness, you would never know where she’d been.
Back in my bedroom, I dressed in red and green, as was the tradition with my father and me. I avoided looking at the windows, because I did not want to think about the snow and the trees and the clear sky of morning. I wanted to be inside and think inside thoughts. I wanted to feel the comfort of walls around me—and to speak the delicate languages of family and society and tradition.
Downstairs, my father and I took turns opening presents. He was eager to see me excited, and so I was excited for him.
He took many pictures of me, but I vowed never to look at them.
It hurt too much to think how completely the girl in those pictures was not me.
*
The last gift I gave him was the map I had drawn for him.
Until this very moment, I have never told anyone about it—not even my husband. Sometimes you hide away a memory because it is so precious that you don’t want to dilute it with the attempt to recount it. Sometimes you hide a memory because the disclosure of it would reveal you to be a different person from the one others believe you to be. And sometimes you may hide a memory because it inhabits you in some physical way, because its meaning is inexpressible and dangerous. That is this memory—evidence, baleful proof—just the recollection of him opening my gift.
He unrolls it on the ground, kneeling before it like a supplicant, head bowed, prayerful and quiet.
What he says is, “You did this,” and his voice is full of wonder and admiration. He does not bother to thank me. It is a gift beyond thank yous.
Using his fingertip, he travels from one place to another on the map, and at each location he pauses to examine the detail. It is as though he lives, for the moment, in that map, as though he and I are travelers on a different plane.
That plane is a place where you can redraw yourself from scratch.
The pen lines are so perfect, so straight and lovely—who would ever want to cross them?
*
I had two visitors later that day. The first was Polly. We stood, shivering, on the sidewalk, because I did not want her in my house. The space inside those walls was suddenly precious to me.
“Are you having a good Christmas?” she asked.
“I guess.” I shrugged.
“Did you get good presents?”
Her face was still splotchy with bruises.
“Are you okay?” I said.
“Oh, this’ll go away. It happens.”
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s walk.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. It’s Christmas.”
“It’s cold.”
“It’s not so cold.”
In truth it was very cold indeed, but I liked the punishing feeling of the icy wind. So we walked slowly down the middle of the street. There were very few cars out, but when one came we stepped aside and let it pass.
We said nothing for a few minutes. She seemed to be waiting for me to confess something, but I didn’t feel like confessing.
Eventually, she said, “So?”
“So what?”
“So last night.”
“Yeah.”
“It finally happened.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Everyone was wondering if it was ever going to happen for you. Are you relieved?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you remember any of it?”
“Not much.”
“We tried to look for you, you know. But we couldn’t find you. You’re fast. I never knew how fast you were.”
I said nothing. The swiftness with which I had run naked through the woods was an unfathomable topic for me.
Polly, observing my reluctance to speak, stopped in the road and turned to face me. In some dim part of my mind, I found myself enthralled by the abrasions on her skin. I could wander free on the landscape of her injuries.
“Hey,” she said. “Are you all right? I know it’s a big deal. It’s scary. I remember my first time.”
I remembered her first time as well. She hadn’t seemed scared at all. She had seemed proud and gloating.
“Do you remember,” she said, smiling, “how you used to say it wouldn’t happen to you? I mean, you were so convinced that you were different. I bet that seems silly now, doesn’t it? All that worry for nothing.”
“I guess so.”
“You get used to it. You do. You begin to look forward to it, even. Look, we’re young. We’re only going to be young for a little while. Then we’ll be old forever. We might as well enjoy it, you know?”
A car came, and we stepped out of the road into a snowbank.
“You know,” she said, “I kind of envy you that you’re just starting. But it’ll be better now. We’ll be together. It’s like you moved away for a while—but you’re back now.”
The thought that I had traveled so far by accident the night before made me sick.
“It feels wrong, Polly,” I said. “It just feels wrong.”
“But it’s not,” she said. She took my shoulders and gave her head a maternal shake to reassure me. “It’s not. Don’t you see? It’s the most natural thing in the world. It’s only beautiful. That’s the only thing it is.”