When the bus pulls into the Kansas City station, my body aches. Every muscle is protesting at the tense posture I’ve held the entire trip. Even while I slept I didn’t relax. I wait for everyone else to exit the bus and only at last call do I rise. My legs carry me out on a militant charge, and the thought briefly crosses my mind about developing blood clots in my legs from prolonged sitting and how that wouldn’t be such a bad way to go if it took me quickly before I stepped off this bus.
There are no blood clots.
Only numbness, that’s flushed mercifully through my torso and limbs in a deluge as if it’s being carried intravenously in my bloodstream.
The sidewalk feels more substantial under my feet when I land upon it. I huff under my breath. Everything is less forgiving here, even the concrete. The air is biting and cold, the sharpness of it pricks the lining of my lungs, and I tug Mrs. L’s scarf that I already had wrapped around my neck up over my mouth to repress the attack.
My fingers are shaky as I dial a number I haven’t thought about in years, Claudette, my caseworker.
“Hello?” her answer brings on the same rush of relief it always did. I always thought of Claudette as my guardian angel because she was the woman who rescued me.
“Claudette, this is,” I hesitate because I haven’t said my birth name out loud in years, “Meg Groves.” The words are acrid, and I swallow repeatedly trying to rid my mouth of the awful taste they’ve left behind.
“Meg,” she says it the same way she always did, soothing, setting the stage for what is about to unfold. She lived her life in crisis management mood, obviously she still does. “It’s been a long time, dear. How are you?”
“I’m good,” I lie. I’ve learned that lying when my well-being is concerned is easier than trying to navigate the truth. Nobody wants to hear, I’m not good. That just makes everything uncomfortable and then the fact that I’m not good would need to be addressed or ignored. Either option makes people squirm, so I lie. I’m good. I’m always good. Deep down I’m so scared I want to cry, but I continue. “I’ve been in California, and I just came back to Kansas City for a visit. It’s kind of late to get a motel room, and I was wondering if maybe I could stay with you, just for tonight?”
The pause that comes brings tears to my eyes. The silence sounds like denial.
“Never mind, it’s okay. I shouldn’t have called.”
I’m ready to press the button on my phone to disconnect when she calls out loudly as if she senses my looming escape, “No! No, of course you can stay with me tonight. I apologize for the hesitation. I think I’m just in shock hearing your voice. The good kind of shock, but still shock.”
She gives me her address and I Uber a ride to her apartment. It’s the same apartment she’s lived in for as long as I can remember. The same apartment that offered me refuge all those years ago.
Stepping inside, and into Claudette’s open arms, settles my nerves. She looks the same; her black hair smattered with silver and her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. I’ve always thought of her glasses as a sharp underscore to her intense owl-like eyes. She’s short in stature and heavy set in build. She’s a safe place. The only safe place in this city as far as I’m concerned.
Time yields results, even against the defiant
present
Justine’s letter is wavy and rigid now that it’s dry. It feels brittle, like the words it contains.
I read it again this morning as soon as I woke up. I think I was hoping it was all a nightmare.
It wasn’t.
If anything, it hurts worse in the daylight.
Last night it gutted me with intense anger.
This morning it gutted me with sadness—mourning what could have been.
What could have been…
I know Justine isn’t expecting a response—that she’s probably hoping against one—but I feel like I need to write her.
I dig her envelope out of the trash—it reeks with the days old decay taking place in the bottom of the dark, moist bin. I jot her address down and quickly discard it again. I transfer the address to an envelope and place my folded letter inside. I’ll mail it tomorrow on my way to work.
I glance at the time on my phone; it’s just after eleven. The deli is open, so I head down to see if Mrs. Lipokowski has any forwarding information on Faith.
The place is crowded with the early lunch rush. I buy a six-inch roast beef and ask her if she can stop by apartment three when she closes up this afternoon because I don’t want to take up any extra time while she’s swamped in paying customers. She agrees.
And at three o’clock she knocks on my door. “Hi there, Seamus.”
“Hi, Mrs. L. I won’t keep you, I know you’re on your way home to relax. Hope told me last night that Faith left.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Hope talked to you?”