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There was no trace of the bathroom of my childhood. It was a hunter green with lots of houseplants and ivy wallpaper that looked like it was randomly crawling over the walls. The linoleum had been taken up and new tile put down. The shower curtain was transparent.
I stepped out of the dirty clothes and turned on the water. After the first day he’d shaved me, it had been spelled out that any stubble would send me back to the bad cell. The promise of three weeks loomed over me as threatening in my mind as a sentence to death row.
One night I had stubble. He almost took me to the cell, but I begged him to watch the video so he’d know I’d obeyed him. He must have done so because when he returned, he’d nodded as if everything were okay.
Standing in the shower now, with the water pouring over me, I could feel the stubble. It would be normal, expected even, for me to leave it alone and let it grow, like some arcane and hidden secret proof of my freedom, but I couldn’t do it. Instead, I grabbed a razor and shaved, knowing I’d never let that hair grow out again even if no one ever knew about it either way, or why I did it.
After I was clean, shaven, and my hair was washed with mango-scented shampoo, I leaned my forehead against the wall and cried. Yes, I still could.
Out in the entryway I’d held it together. I’d had to keep myself from flinching when I’d heard my mother’s voice grating like fingernails on a chalkboard. And for once, my father’s silence had been appreciated.
I wondered if I would ever get used to hearing human speech besides my own again. I’d heard human voices on CDs I’d been given, but they were singing. Singing always seemed disconnected from reality, since aside from musicals, people don’t just randomly burst into song.
I got out of the shower, dressed, and then went to sit on the foreign bed. Probably the same mattress that had always been there, but who knew? Despite being hungry, I stayed there until my mother knocked on the door.
“Honey, I’ve fixed you something to eat. Come on into the kitchen.”
She’d shifted gears, and now she was prepared to deal with my existence again. When I got to the kitchen, I had to stop the scream from coming out of my mouth. I’m sure she thought it was the logical thing to do, that it would somehow comfort me. She couldn’t have known it would never comfort me again.
“Emmie?” My childhood nickname. “Honey, I made you some chicken noodle soup. It always made you feel better before.”
Before. Not now. And never again. How exactly did one explain an inexplicable phobic reaction to chicken soup?
“I’m sorry, I can’t eat this,” I said. It was as if his punishment followed me, and I wondered what I’d done to displease him.
Rationally, I knew my mother was just doing what made sense to her, what she’d always done. The one food Band-aid that had always worked before. Unfortunately this food was now a knife, not a bandage, and cutting on me more wouldn’t make it better.
“Why the hell not?”
I knew she was trying to believe I was being difficult. She was still holding onto the diminishing hope that I hadn’t been horribly tortured, that instead I’d gone off irresponsibly on a trip or had a late quarter-life crisis.
“I can’t talk about it,” I said, “I just can’t eat that.”
She started to open her mouth again, but my father stepped in, in one of those rare and miraculous instances where he doesn’t let her get away with just anything.
“Donna, I think if Emmie doesn’t want chicken noodle soup, she can have something else. We’ve got some leftover spaghetti.”
“That’d be fine, Dad.” I was relieved.
The last thing I needed was a shouting match with my mother because I couldn’t fit either the image of someone desperately grateful for chicken noodle soup, or that of some rebellious teenager. My mother lit a cigarette and sat in front of the television.
Soup was her entire repertoire. I guess being in the cell I’d overly romanticized it. When you’re someone’s prisoner, the idea of mom is idealized. All neurotic and annoying behavior is swept under the rug in light of that need to just be safe.
I followed my dad into the kitchen, unwilling to deal with her. I wasn’t about to explain to them about the soup. For one thing, I had no idea how to edit it down into some parent-safe version of the events. And for another, even if I could, they would suspect what had gone on, and I couldn’t handle the idea that my parents might suspect, even in the most vague way, the things that had gone on between my master and myself. That was private.
My dad busied himself in the kitchen, taking the spaghetti out of the fridge and loading up a plate for me. “You want garlic bread?”
“Yeah.”
I helped myself to some tea out of the fridge.
“You okay?” he asked. He didn’t look at me. I could hear the catch in his voice. If he cried, there was no hope for any of us.
“I’m fine,” I said. It wasn’t true, and I couldn’t exactly express that the largest reason it was a lie was because I was free. I didn’t think he had the proper wiring to understand that one.
He just nodded. “Your mother was worried. We both were. She may be acting a little funny, but she just doesn’t know how to process some things.”
“I know.”
