Somebody Somewhere Read Free Page A

had made light of living in the black duffle coat she had nicknamed her “mobile home.” It was Carol who had sat casually at the train station watching the last train go before saying, “Oh damn. Missed the last one.” Me? I hadn’t been there. I had been a stray cat that Carol had to find. Stray cats have no homes to miss.
    —
    Tap, tap
came a knocking of a tiny hand at the door as it got dark. Not even three feet tall, she stood there drenched as the rain continued to pour down. A hand was on the handle to let her in. “Leave It out there
,
” came the voice, referring to the child. “It went out there. It can fucking stay out there.”
Tap, tap
came the knocking at the door again. The adult’s hand had moved away from the handle, too afraid to defy the voice and let It in. It went and sat under a tree in the company of the cat It had gone out to play with.
    —
    What the hell was I supposed to do with this feeling? I didn’t even know what it was called. I needed something but couldn’t find it because I didn’t know what to look for. Where was Carol now, Carol of the cat-collecting?
    —
    “Hi, Don,” said Tim as I came through the arrival gate after getting off the plane. I caught the gentleness in his smile, smiled quickly, andturned my eyes to the floor as I began to fade. It’s okay, I said to myself, tuning in to the rhythm of my feet. At least I’m here.
    It was easier to look at Tim before when I had been “dead” most of the time. Carol could have looked at him and laughed. Willie could have imparted his latest store of interesting information. But now I was very much alive. It was too much to share, but at least I was there. Tim wasn’t a piece of walking slime. He didn’t push or try to hug me. Look, I thought, I’m here. Tim smiled.
    —
    It was good to be at Tim’s place in the country. I was among the familiar: the fence, the curve of the fields, the trees, the rock garden, the cottage windows, the huge mirror in the hallway, Tim, and the piano—all the same. Tim sat at the piano and began to play.
    I told Tim about Carol and Willie and about the book. After so many years he was relieved to know his instincts had been right. Trying to make me stay present in company had been like trying to touch a fairy. I had forever “disappeared” at the first sign of acknowledgment. The directness of a compliment, the first inklings of spoken encouragement, killed me off each time as surely as if I’d been stung by a scorpion.
    Tim and I stood silently in the kitchen as I handed him the copy of the manuscript. He disappeared into his room to read it. I disappeared into the spare room and traced the pattern of the patchwork quilt upon my bed.
    I walked into Tim’s bathroom and stood before the mirror. There was a gentle vulnerability and honesty in the face looking back. I could no longer see Carol within those eyes. There was no deadness, no manic smile, no head cocked cutely to the side, no “ideal child” photo pose. I saw me, and it moved me.
    I could feel my own heartbeat and wanted to get in there with me where I would be safe and in company. “Take me home. Take me home,” I whispered mentally to the face that held the sense of belonging only found in such addictive familiarity. “It’s too hard out here. It’s all too hard out here,” I said desperately in the silence of my mind. I looked at the hands upon the familiar cold, flat, mirrored surface that I associated with “touching feelings.”
    “Donna, do you want a drink?,” came a voice from the corridor. “Black tea, no milk, no sugar,” came the response from my mouth as I stood lost in the eyes of my reflection. It didn’t matter a damn whether I liked tea or not.
    —
    Tim and I ran over the curves and jumped over the furrows of the fields. We smelled the different plants and hugged trees and fell into the branches and foliage that were their arms. Tim had spent five years waiting for me to join him in his world. Now