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Easier said than done.
Today is a workday, but I’ve taken the morning off to go for an appointment on Wabash in the South Loop for my follow-up mammogram, to have the asymmetry on the right breast checked. I don’t usually schedule appointments on days I work, but it was the only time for weeks that they could get me in and I didn’t want to put it off any longer.
I change into the hip-length gown and then follow the mammographer into the room. After it’s done, I sit, anxiously waiting for her to come back with results from the radiologist. If they’re still inconclusive, we’ll do an ultrasound and then go from there. I’m all nerves.
“Good news,” she says when she comes back. “Everything looks fine.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. We’re sure. The breast tissue was most likely superimposed when the first mammogram was done,” she says, “making it look different than the other breast. It happens. It’s common, but nothing to worry about. You don’t need to have another mammogram for a year.”
I smile, feeling lighter and in good spirits. It doesn’t last long.
It’s as I’m leaving the physician’s building that it happens.
I step out of the building and onto Wabash. And that’s when I see her crossing the intersection at Wabash and Cullerton, her dark brown hair hanging long over the back of the white winter coat, a pair of skinny jeans tucked into the tall shaft of her winter boots, the ones with the fuzzy cuff.
My heart stops. It’s her.
I call out with the only name I know for her. “Nat!” I scream, cupping my hands around my mouth, though she’s not Nat because Nat is dead. “Nat Cohen!” The woman turns and for a moment, our eyes lock. As they do, she visibly straightens. It might just be a coincidence that I’ve run into her here, but I’m not so sure she hasn’t been following me and that this time, she just happened to get caught.
Who is she and what does she want with me?
Quickly I start making my way toward her. As I do, she turns the other way and runs. I give chase.
The street around us is filled with people despite the weather, everyone all bundled up in coats and hats, making it hard to tell who is who and were it not for her white coat—an outlier among almost exclusively black—I’d have lost her by now.
My anger surges as we race down Wabash. Seeing her has brought back all the emotion so that I feel humiliated and indignant all over again. This woman lied to me. She took advantage of my generosity. She came into my home under false pretenses and I fell for it. She stole from me.
All of a sudden, my rage reaches new heights.
The adrenaline spikes and I run faster.
At 18th Street, she turns sharply right. She cuts close to a brick building, throwing a glance back over her shoulder to see if she’s lost me, which she hasn’t. She runs fast, faster than me, the distance between us increasing. I keep her in my range of vision. We cross Michigan, Indiana, Prairie Avenue, running past businesses, a warehouse, apartment buildings and parking lots. I elbow people by accident as I run and am met with curt words like, Watch it, Excuse you and What the fuck, lady?
Houses appear. Massive houses. 18th Street becomes Calumet Avenue and still I run. I run down Calumet, past brick townhomes on one side of the street, high-rise apartments the other, some recognizable from all the times I’ve traveled down Lake Shore Drive, which is just a stone’s throw to the east. Everything here is packed densely together, creating pockets to hide. Parked cars line both sides of the tree-lined street in the Prairie Avenue District, which is much sought after and where the most affluent Chicagoans lived before the Gold Coast was built. Under different circumstances I might stand to take it in, to admire it, the architecture and the history, but as it is, it’s all a blur, and the only thing I’m really aware of are the many hiding spots and the many places to escape.
The street in front of me is devoid of life, nearly everything white. Winter is a wasteland.
I’ve lost her. I stand in the middle of Calumet, arms outstretched, spinning, my eyes wildly searching the street. When I come to a stop, dizzy, breathless, the townhomes to my right have patios that sit just slightly beneath ground level, access to them limited by a black wrought iron fence, which would be easy to climb, to then hunker down on the patios behind bulky outdoor furniture covered for the winter with polyester tarps, and hide.
I start drifting right when movement in my peripheral vision grabs my attention. I turn. To my left is a walkway. It’s wide and open, heading under a bridge. From the bridge’s underpass, I see a flash of white. I’m wrong. She’s not hiding on the patios. She’s gone the other way. I run toward the flash of white, as if dashing after Alice in Wonderland’s white rabbit, along the sidewalk and then under the bridge.
On the other side of the underpass, a ramp appears to the right, going up. It’s a pedestrian bridge, over the rail yard.
Here, the beauty of the Prairie Avenue District fades and it’s industrial. It’s loud with traffic, which soars past on the adjacent Lake Shore Drive. The area is not as maintained. Things look aged. The deck of the bridge is a composite of wood and something else, but the railings are a rusted metal, reddish brown, flaking off. Less desirable parts of the city encroach on this, so that I wouldn’t feel safe here alone, at this time of year, if I was in my right mind.
But I’m not. I’m not alone and I’m not in my right mind.
The pedestrian bridge goes to the right and then the left, climbing. Beneath us is a series of train tracks with four Metra trains on them, stopped further back and empty. There is a wooden platform just below, which is basic; it doesn’t have a building or sell tickets. A rider would have to purchase those once on the train. The platform is empty.
She is fast. I’d never catch her but fate intervenes when, in her haste, she trips. She falls forward to the ground, catching herself with her hands, letting out a short cry of pain or shock.
On her hands and knees on the ground, she turns and looks back over a shoulder. Her eyes rise to mine, measuring the distance between us, which gives me the opportunity to close the gap, and I do, reaching out to grab her by the hood of her winter coat as she tries to stand up. She tries to pull away, to shrug out of the coat to free herself, but either I am physically stronger or my resolve is stronger. She manages to stand up, but I hold on tight, not letting go.
“Who are you?” I ask, pinning her between my body and the bridge railing so she can’t get away so easily. She backs a half step away from me, bumping into the edge. “Who are you?”
The answer is cheeky. “Nat Cohen.”
