When she was finished, she slumped against the wooden slats of the bench, wiping her face with a stained, frayed sleeve.
“I don’t know what happened and don’t need to,” I said quietly. “I’m offering to take you to a flat I keep stocked with food, water, everything you need. I have dozens of places like it around the city for folks that need them. This one’s yours for thirty days. You can stay there while you work through whatever you’re dealing with, eat, sleep, and shower in peace. Periodically, I’ll drop by to make sure you’re okay.” Usually in a week, they were ready to talk. Needed to. I offered thirty days because a time limit was pressure and a firm hand lends shape to Play-Doh. If they needed more than thirty days and were earnestly trying to recover, they got it.
She cleared her throat and when her voice came out it was gravelly, hoarse, as if she’d recently been screaming. But no one heard. And no one came. “Why?” she said.
“Because every man, woman, or child we lose in this world, I take personally.”
“Why?”
“It’s just the way I’m wired.”
“What do you want in return?”
“For you to get angry. Heal. Maybe join those of us trying to make a difference. Do you do drugs?” That was a defining factor. Hard-core drug users I usually lose. So many broken-winged birds, I try to focus on the ones with the greatest odds of success.
“No,” she said, with the first trace of animation I’d seen, a flash of faint indignation.
“Good.”
“Are you for real, kid?” she said sharply, emphasis on kid.
Anger was common. Belittle me, drive me away. It never worked. “As if you’re much older than me,” I scoffed. “I’m twenty-three,” I erred on the farthest side of my age to establish credibility, “and they were hard years.”
Her sharpness vanished. It took energy, and birds had little to spare when it was all caught up in an inner cyclone whirling around whatever horrible thing they’d endured, kicking up so much internal debris it was hard to see anything clearly. “I’m twenty-five,” she whispered. “Birthday was yesterday.”
That was harsh. I’d had a few rough birthdays myself. I wasn’t stupid enough to wish her a happy birthday. Sometimes there is no such thing. I fished again for her name, to make that fragile first connection. “I’m Dani.”
Her nostrils flared. “I heard you the first time.”
“And you are?”
“Not carrying a sword, assorted guns, and weapons.” She made it sound like an insult.
I said lightly, “Well, stick with me and we’ll remedy the shit out of that.”
Her eyes went flat again and she said on a soft, exhausted exhale, “I’m not a fighter.”
“Then you’re a die-er?” There were only two positions in my book.
A long silence, then, “I don’t want to be.”
“That’s a start. Do you think the world is going to get nicer?”
She began to cry, silent tears slipping down her cheeks. I knew better than to pat her hand in a gesture of comfort. Birds have hair-triggers. You couldn’t invade their space or they half flew, half scrabbled away. You had to talk easy. Focus on getting them to safety. Whatever she’d survived, it had happened very recently. From the way she’d commented about her birthday, I suspected yesterday.
I said, “I’m standing now. I’m going to start walking. Follow me and I’ll get you off the streets. You’ll have thirty days—taken care of, fed, and housed—to decide what you want to be when you grow up,” I flung the thorn.
It pricked, she bristled minutely. “I am grown up.”
“If this is your finished product, you’re in trouble.” I pushed up and stalked off, not slow either. They had to want to come.
“Wait,” she said behind me. “I’m hurt, I can’t walk as fast as you.”
Because she couldn’t see my face, I allowed myself a smile.
* * *
π
I showed her around the flat, emphasizing the many dead bolts on the inside of the door, the food in the pantry, the way you had to jockey the stove knobs to get them to work. I didn’t open the fridge; I’d grab Shazam’s blood on the way out.
She walked woodenly to the bedroom, stood staring blankly at the bed, storms rushing behind her eyes. When bad things happen, you relive them for a while, keep seeing them over and over. Psychiatrists call it “intrusive thoughts” but that makes it sound like they’re infrequent and intrude into “normal” thoughts. There are no normal thoughts in the near aftermath. You’re trapped in a movie theatre that’s playing a horror flick over and over and you can’t escape because somebody locked all the doors and the film’s rolling on every wall.
Unless you get angry enough to break down a door.
Some things aren’t worth analyzing. You leave them behind. Actus me invito factus non est meus actus. Then there are those actions you chose to make that shouldn’t be analyzed either.
If I can’t make them angry—the right way, and there are loads of wrong ones—I invariably lose them.
She had no purse. No money. Her clothes were torn and dirty, her oversized man’s shirt an obvious pilfer, an employee shirt from an out-of-business petrol station with the name “Paddy” emblazoned on the pocket. “You got a phone?” I said.
She nodded and fished it awkwardly from the shirt pocket.
“Put my number in it.” I rattled off the digits and watched her type them in. “If you want to leave the flat, text me. Me or one of my friends will come get you. My goal is to keep you safe and alive until your head clears. Got it?”
“Got it,” she whispered.
“You want anything, text. Do you need a doctor?”
She shook her head. “I’ll heal.”
Her body would. We’d see about the rest. “Your name?”
“Roisin,” she said numbly.
Connection made. “Cool.” I turned to walk away when I felt her hand on my shoulder and turned back to her.
Then she was hugging me, and I thought, Shit, if she touches my head, I might blow her up, so I was even more awkward than I usually am when someone hugs me out of the blue, but I figured it out and sort of patted her comfortingly on the back while trying to keep her away from my neck and head.
She gasped with pain and stumbled away. When she turned her back to me, I saw blood on her shirt, blossoming over her right shoulder blade. A considerable amount.
“You can go now,” she said. Tightly. Not because she was angry but because she was barely holding it together. I wanted to demand she show me her back, determine for myself whether she needed a doctor.
I know what it’s like to have somebody try to zoom in too close to the things I don’t want to talk about.