Cry Your Way Home

by Damien Angelica Walters

  Hannah doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t need to because it does sound silly. You can baby-proof a house, but you can’t life-proof a child. A tiny breathless laugh slips from Leanne’s lips. “You know, the last time I did this, sitting outside your door like this, you were six, almost seven. We got home from your cousin Felicity’s birthday party, and it was late and you were tired and said you wanted ice cream.

  “We said no. For one thing, it was way past your bedtime and for another, we didn’t have any ice cream. We didn’t remind you that at the party, you said you didn’t like it, even though we knew you did. You shrieked at the top of your lungs that we were the meanest parents ever, and you stomped into your room and threw yourself down on your bed, crying like nobody’s business. I sat outside your room talking for a long time until you calmed down.

  “The funniest part was that we offered you ice cream the next day and you said no, you didn’t like it anymore. That lasted about a week, I think. Such a goofball you were.”

  Leanne shakes her head. Blinks away tears.

  “I’m so sorry for tonight, babygirl. I’m sorry I didn’t listen better and let you talk. I’m sorry if I made you feel like I was making light of what you said. I didn’t mean to. The last thing in the world I want to do is to hurt your feelings or make you feel like they’re not important, because they are, and I want you to be able to talk to me about anything. Like the way you can talk to your dad.

  “It was hard for me to talk to my mom when I was a kid, too. She always told me not to worry about things so much, instead of just listening to what I had to say. I made the same mistake tonight, and I promise I won’t do that anymore. I’ll just zip my lips and listen.

  “I love you, no matter what, and I always will.”

  She rakes her front teeth over her lower lip, listens for movement.

  “Hannah?”

  Slowly, she gets to her feet, curls one hand around the doorknob and knocks lightly with her knuckles.

  “Babygirl, can I come in?”

  This Is the Way I Die

  I want to be broken, to be shattered then reshaped into something new. Something with bulletproof skin, eyes that can see in the dark, lungs that can breathe in water as well as air, and an impenetrable heart. I want to be made monstrous, beautiful, frightening.

  You wield the scalpel, the clamps, the bone saw. I am offering myself as the subject of your experiment. Yes, I know it will hurt. Yes, I know there is no guarantee. I may end up terrified or warped and deformed or as fragile as spun glass, but all things carry a risk.

  Know that I am not a victim. Know that this is my choice.

  * * *

  I’m drowning when I come to you. You make no mention of my sodden hair, the water dripping from my fingertips onto your floor, the squelching sound of my footsteps, but I know you see them. You see everything.

  You see: A girl of indeterminate age, her shoulders slumped but her eyes holding tight to a defiant spark.

  You think: The spark is fragile, hanging on by a tiny thread, and you could snip it quickly if you chose, so quickly I wouldn’t notice until I collapsed into a pile of nothing, a not-thing.

  You fear: The words from my mouth, the conviction in my voice.

  You’ve been waiting for someone like me for a very long time.

  * * *

  “What’s your name?” you say.

  “Why?”

  You raise your eyebrows. “I should call you something, shouldn’t I?”

  I bite my lower lip and finally say, “Lola Mae Blue.”

  One corner of your mouth quirks into a half-smile. “Lola Mae Blue. I like it.”

  When you take my hand, you say nothing of the chill in my skin. The heat of yours feels strange, alien, as if my own flesh has forgotten what it’s like to be warm. I’m suddenly afraid of the warmth, afraid of burning up, burning down to ash and cinder, so I gently tug my hand free from yours. Your lips part for an instant but close before a word escapes.

  Your eyes are proud, yet hesitant, when you show me your workshop. The lights are bright, startlingly so. A metal table with a raised edge and a small hole for drainage takes up the center of the room; the tools of your trade are spread out on a bench in the corner; schematics and designs cover the walls; the smell of disinfectant lingers in the air.

  The air conditioner turns on with a whoosh. I see goosebumps on your forearms; I have none of my own.

  * * *

  You show me your sketches, your ideas. I point here and there. You erase lines, draw new ones, darken others. When you finish, you hold up the sketch, a small smile on your face. I look for a long time, but there’s something missing, something I can’t define. It’s beautiful and strong, there’s no doubt about that, but it’s somehow … empty. Powerless. You see the hesitation in my eyes and flip to another sketch.

  You stop to make coffee, ask me how I take mine. Before you take a sip, you pick up the pencil again. After a time, the second sketch is discarded like the first, but with a low growl instead of a frown. Another sketch and then another meets the same fate as the sun drops below the horizon and the house grows dark.

  You make more coffee. You don’t have to ask this time; when you hand me my mug, the coffee is perfect.

  We start on another sketch, then you frown and toss the sketchbook aside. “They’re not good enough,” you say, and pull out a new sketchbook, the blank surface of the pages awash with possibility. You tuck the pencil behind your ear, pick up your mug. “Talk to me,” you say, your voice little more than a whisper. Your eyes catch mine; I look away first.

  “About what?”

  “Tell me what you want, what you’re afraid of. Show me how to see things through your eyes. The other sketches were concepts. This is about you, not something vague.”

  I exhale. Glance down at my hands. Slender fingers, short nails, and a tiny scar near the base of my thumb, a scar from a wound I can’t remember. I have many like it. I’m not sure if I truly don’t remember, or if I’ve chosen not to remember. Sometimes letting go is for the best.

  We sit in silence for a time; I can’t find words to fill it up. Finally, you bring me a blanket, ask me to hold out my hands and when I do, you drape the fabric over my palms.

  “Close your eyes and tell me how it feels.”

  I laugh, but the sound is harsh at the edges, almost manic in its desperate attempt to sound normal.

  “Please,” you say. “I’m serious. Tell me.”

  So I do.

  Soft, silky, surprisingly heavy, warm. Boring. Boring. Boring. I have no idea why you think this will help, but I like the way your brow creases when you work.

  The pencil scratches across the paper, pauses, and scratches again.

  “Tell me about the color,” you say.

  “It’s grey,” I say. “Like a storm or dryer lint.”

  Your eyes widen. How can I explain to you that everything is grey?

  “Show me,” I say, when you stop sketching.

  “Not yet.”

  * * *

  The next night, you place an old coffee mug in my hands. There are chips in the handle, a crack in the side, circular stains marring the pale inside.

  Again, you say, “Tell me.”

  Again, I do.

  Fragile, brittle, worn, tired.

  * * *

  “Is Lola Mae your real name?” you ask.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Do you have family? Friends?”

  “Again, does it matter?”

  “It matters to me.”

  “It doesn’t to me.”

  I know you want more, as evidenced by your parted lips and the creased V between your eyebrows, but you let it go.

  * * *

  A pencil, complete with teeth marks. Yours, I presume.

  Concentration, thoughts, choices, decisions.

  * * *

  A book, the cover tattered and creased. I flip through the pages, inhaling the scent of old paper and a story I’v
e never read.

  Words, forgotten, broken promises.

  I blink once, twice. Your face is carefully blank, a study in statuary. I put the book aside and steeple my fingers beneath my chin.

  “Will you show me now?”

  “Not yet.”

  * * *

  “Why,” you ask one night, flipping a pencil from finger to finger. “Why do you want to do this?”

  “Does there need to be a reason?”

  “I’d think so, yes.”

  “There are a hundred. Is that enough?”

  “Tell me.”

  “No.”

  * * *

  A knit scarf. I take each end and wrap it around my hands. Stretch it out.

  Pain. Hurt. Drowning. Dying.

  I stand. Let the scarf fall. “Enough,” I say. “Enough. You don’t need to know these things. You don’t need to know anything about me, only that I’m here, only that I’ve come to you.”

  You stand, put your hands on my shoulders. You’re close enough that I can smell your skin, a mix of sweat, coffee, and graphite. It’s too much. You’re too close. I step back, away, holding my breath. I run outside, bend forward with my hands on my thighs, tell myself to inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Every movement makes my chest ache; something so biologically simple shouldn’t be so fucking hard.

  * * *

  I make coffee and step into the living room, wondering what you’ll have me tell you tonight, wondering how I’ll tell you that this isn’t part of the bargain, this dissection isn’t part of the process. But you pat the sofa beside you instead and hold out the sketchpad.

  The first sketch is hard to take. I want to turn away, but I force myself to look. You’ve drawn me with my shoulders sloped, my chin tucked. Defeated. Tired. The second sketch shows me curled in a small ball. The next shows me standing at a window. The next, me with hands outstretched and tears on my face. The next shows me standing, half my body concealed behind a shadow, not my own, my face twisted in fear.

  I don’t understand these sketches. This is not why I’m here. You know this. Before I can speak, you hold up your hand, show me the last sketch.

  She is not me. Not yet. She is strong, proud. There’s a light in her eyes, apparent even in the smudges of charcoal. The changes, the modifications, are perfect. The anger inside me slips away. I touch the paper as if somehow I can reach through and touch her, bring her into me, become. I want to smile, but my mouth has forgotten the shape.

  “Are you ready?” you ask.

  “Yes.”

  * * *

  On the table, I wonder if I should be afraid, but I refuse to remember what fear tastes like. Surely I’ve swallowed enough for ten lifetimes.

  You decide to start with my hands. I ask why, and you look surprised.

  “I’m not sure,” you say. “It seems like the best place to start. Is that okay?”

  “Yes.”

  I feel the sharp sting of a needle, then nothing at all. I wake to pain, as if my hands have been dipped in acid. The bandages are dotted here and there with Rorschach designs in reddish brown. You feed me, bathe me, brush my hair.

  Strange, this being taken care of, yet I sense no obligation in your touch, only kindness, concern, a gentleness that frightens me even as it comforts. Is this why you started with my hands? So I could learn to trust, to accept that I am worthy of this?

  When it’s time for you to unwrap the bandages, I draw in a sharp rush of air. These hands are capable and warm. I touch my face, my neck, and then move about the room, touching walls, windows, curtains. The textures—rough plaster, woven silk, smooth glass—fill my skin, feed a strange hunger, a need to impress everything with my fingerprints.

  You come to stand beside me, take my new hands in yours. Mine are strong enough now not to pull away. I run a fingertip across your knuckles.

  “Are they okay?” you say.

  I nod, terrified that I’ll cry if I speak a word.

  * * *

  All the mirrors, including the one over the bathroom sink, are gone, their vacancies marked by lighter rectangles of paint and holes in the plaster.

  “I want you to wait until we’re done. Is that okay?”

  I look down at my new hands. “But I can—”

  You press a finger to my lips. “Please.”

  “Okay.”

  * * *

  My eyes are next. You buy a cane, and I spend a week walking while it tap-tap-taps in front of me. I fall once, twice, but eventually I don’t need the cane, only one outstretched hand. Then I don’t need to even extend my hand; I know where everything is and sidestep all the sharp edges.

  You unwind the bandages, and I blink against the sudden sting of light. I cover my eyes, peer through the spaces between my fingers. It’s a shock to see that your eyes are blue, nearly the same shade as the sky outside.

  The blanket draped over the back of the sofa, the same one you had me hold, is red. I sit on the floor with it in my lap, tracing patterns in the weave. I feel you watching and when I glance up, you offer a smile.

  * * *

  My mouth and lungs follow.

  I smile, tracing the shape of my lips with one finger. Strange, yet familiar, like a ghost of someone I once knew. I laugh and it sounds real, which makes me laugh even harder. Soon, you’re laughing at me and I’m holding my stomach because it hurts in a painful way that feels inexplicably good. When the laughter slips away, the smile remains.

  “Tell me,” you say. “Tell me where you came from. Tell me something, anything.”

  I open my mouth to tell you no; instead, other words break free. I tell you of my mother, my father. I tell you how I ran away for the first time at eleven; the last, at seventeen. I tell you of the streets, the fear, the people who hurt, the people who tried to rescue, those who merely turned away—a cruelty more cutting than anything else. I tell you of a thousand things I’ve never spoken to anyone else about.

  When my voice dries up, I step outside and breathe without effort. For the first time in a long time, the only thing in my lungs is air, not water. My eyes burn with tears, and I let them fall.

  * * *

  “It isn’t my real name,” I say one night while we’re eating. “Or, no, it is my real name, but I gave it to myself.”

  “Will you change it again? When I’m finished?”

  I put down my fork. “I don’t know.”

  * * *

  We slip into a routine: I break; I heal.

  When you replace my spine, my height increases by an inch. My shoulders stop slumping forward, my chin doesn’t seek out my chest. My new legs move with purpose, my arms, unafraid to reach out.

  * * *

  “How did you know?” I ask you.

  “Know what?”

  “Why I came here?”

  You shrug. “I just did.”

  “Are you sorry?”

  You shake your head hard. “Not at all. Never think that. Please, never think that.”

  * * *

  Under the fluorescent lights in your workshop, your tools gleam like a promise, offering hints of my reflection in blade and handle both. At the end of the bench, there’s something covered with a cloth the color of old pennies, but as I reach for the fabric, you touch my arm.

  “Not yet,” you say. “Please.”

  * * *

  When you replace my skin, the pain is fire hot and star bright, and I can’t even find my voice to scream.

  You lead me to the guestroom, bring me warm soup and extra blankets, kiss my forehead as if I were a child. The touch of your lips turns my arms to gooseflesh, and when you step back from the bed, your eyes are wide. Mine, too.

  You close the door behind you; I turn my face into the pillow and sleep more deeply than I have in forever.

  This new flesh is so strange, so perfect. No scars. No blemishes. No memory of anyone else’s hands. It will not bruise at a slight or a glance. I press a finger against my forearm, take it away and watch the color rush back in. I touch my
face, feeling the differences there, too: the lack of tension, the tiny lines at the corners of my eyes, lines borne of laughter.

  * * *

  After the last external scar fades to nothing, you take my hand and lead me to a standing mirror you’ve covered with a sheet. I close my eyes and listen to the whisk of fabric as you pull it free. I take a deep breath. Then another. And I open my eyes.

  The Lola Mae staring back at me holds infinite possibility in her gaze, gleaming with the ferocity of Godzilla. She could topple cities, set the world afire. Her shoulders are strong; her limbs, powerful. She could tear apart the strongest bonds, shatter the bones of an oppressor with little effort. Her lips hold resolve; her chin, pride. No one could break this woman. No one would dare even try.

  She is so unlike me that, for a moment, I can’t remember how to breathe. But I’m not drowning. I’m dreaming awake. Aware. She is all the me I always hoped for, all I feared belonged only to pretty fantasies I sometimes indulged when the nights were long and wrapped in solitary confinement.

  Yet my fingers tremble. I am paralyzed by thoughts that someone will see through the reconstruction, will see the girl who used to live within, will smell the vulnerabilities of the still-fragile heart inside and exploit everyone until the external shell crumbles away to nothing and the truth is revealed: this is all window dressing, and bereft of its clothing, this mannequin is still powerless.

  I turn to you and touch my chest, unable to give my fears voice. You press one finger against my lips.

  “It’s not ready yet,” you say.

  * * *

  We walk hand in hand by the lake behind your house, not speaking, just being. We whisper in the dark. I tell you I always wanted to learn to paint. I tell you I want to climb a mountain and stare at the clouds. I tell you I want to read Romeo and Juliet. I laugh, embarrassed by these things, these frivolous wants. You touch my cheek, stare into my eyes.

  The next morning, I find an easel, tubes of vibrant colors, brushes. Then hiking shoes, bug spray, and an old volume of Shakespeare’s tragedies.

  * * *

  A song comes on the radio, one I remember my mother singing before she slipped into a bottle and forgot her voice. I burst into tears. You wipe them away, put your arms around me, and we sway together, moving in time to the notes.