He could hear her moving above him. The bed creaked beneath her weight and the weight of the baby she held in her arms.

Something fell to the floor, and she called it by its name. “Toy,” he mimicked, but she had begun singing again, and her voice drowned out his whisper. He had learned a new word.

While he waited, he looked at the naked sliver of skin visible through the gap between the fabric that covered her legs and her feet. It was pink and smooth. He could sense its warmth and felt a strong urge to touch it.

He brought his finger close but stopped himself.

From the door, standing completely still on the threshold, the cat stared at him with yellow, frightened eyes.

-22-

-22-

A fist between her teeth.

Teresa had spent years biting her fists to muffle her crying. She had found it an effective technique for silencing her despair when it wouldn’t do for it to be heard. It used to happen quite often—in a past life that she could never quite leave behind. She had set fire to that version of herself in a pyre of old photographs, but she was not deluded enough to think she could ever be truly free of it. All she had ever hoped for was that she would never again have to suffer so intensely, and it seemed that life had granted her wish: the pain was no longer her enemy, simply a part of who she was. Almost like an old friend. A burden she had to bear in exchange for those select memories she wanted to hold on to.

A fist between her teeth now, and she was biting hard. She had turned the tap on so that the water pouring into the sink would cloak the sound of a panic she couldn’t control. She studied her reflection in the mirror, desperate to record every single detail of what she was going through—as if by facing the moment head-on she could somehow force it to end sooner. She had hoped the wave of fear and misery would soon pass, leaving her spent but free, just with another bruise on her heart. Instead it seemed to last forever.

She looked into her own eyes in the mirror, trying to feel less alone, to witness her own disorientation and confront it. She suddenly felt a profound compassion for herself; nobody else could feel that for her. The person in the mirror had lost her bearings, and though she loved herself with a tenderness granted by age and experience, she could not be saved, not this time. It was no longer her choice.

Though she refused to put a name to what was happening to her, she did wonder what the future would hold for her, how resilient she would need to be to face it, and how much more time she might be allowed.