The idea that you would suggest that to me was almost funny. I smiled. As I smiled, I realized that I had been smiling at work in the usual way, at appropriate times, but that this smile was different because you were making me do it. No particular individual had made me smile in a long time; I had been smiling, when I smiled, because the general circumstances warranted a smile. But this time, I smiled because you compelled me to. How? Your actions made your warmth palpable to me. The warmth stayed in me after you had gone back to your desk. I could feel the smile lingering on my face, and I wanted to sniff the air in order to get a clearer impression of the fragrance that you were wearing that day. I found I liked it. But driving back home was more painful than it had been in months; I drove home feeling like a man being hounded by a pack of wolves. When I pulled into my driveway, I nearly failed to park the car in the usual way, and, when I had parked, I still had to sit at the wheel for a while before I could muster the willpower to get out. The sound of my breathing filled the car. I thought I might cloud the windows over. I wondered if the others were aware of that. When I finally did manage to get inside, everything about my house leapt out at me, and for a moment I was almost uncertain whether or not I had entered a stranger’s house by mistake. Your face was somehow at work. Your look of compassion had taken me. Your fragrance—was I still smelling it, even here? Was it on my hand? No, but my hand still smelled like the soap in the woman’s washroom, which you had used to clean it. I saw the white tile, the fluorescent light, the gleaming steel fixtures, the mirror, and you, a dark presence, dabbing my hand with a paper towel, transferring your gaze now from it to my face. Your eyes, full of compassion, haunting compassion, were like images of another planet.

Once I’d seen them I couldn’t—

I saw them, I kept —

While I’m driving home—I saw them see me —

Your bandage on my hand. Whenever it came into view, the sight of it startled me so much I had to suppress an impulse to slam on the brakes or swerve off the road. I tore off the bandage and threw it out the window.