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I sat down on the bed and tried to think of something to make, but nothing came to mind. All I could think about was Anton, and the great sadness yawning inside me.
I lay down and looked at the ceiling, full of cracks and old water stains. The mattress under me was scratchy and sagged, and I tossed and turned, unable to get comfortable.
What was I going to do?
I reached down inside myself, searching for the answer, but nothing came to hand. I was lost. I wanted to talk
to Sadie. I wanted to talk to my mom. But I didn't have my phone with me. And what would they be able to tell me anyway that I didn't already know? That I'd married a guy for money and shock of shocks it hadn't turned out very well? Who would have seen that coming? Clearly not me.
You should learn a valuable skill, Mrs. Andersen had told me, and she was kind of right. I was pretty helpless. Being Anton's wife... it had been somehow freeing in the way that solid ground frees you up to run. I had enjoyed the idea of no longer fighting to survive, no longer struggling to make it on my own. I had enjoyed being subject to his needs, knowing at any time I could stop what he was doing with a word. I had enjoyed trying to get under his skin, trying to make him laugh. I had enjoyed being the one who made him come. A powerful man, but he was still a slave to his own desires no matter how he tried to control them. And I was just a girl who wanted to give up the fear and the exhaustion and let him take it out of my hands.
Pretty stupid of me to think love could grow from that. Love had to be there first before we could be those things to each other. And trust had to be there.
I closed my eyes. I was just going around and around in circles and getting nowhere. Thinking was stupid. I hated thinking. Thinking about Anton, who was nothing but feelings inside me, jumbled impressions and bright flames of desire, was even stupider. It was like trying to think about... about something like food. You could think about it, sure, but it could only be experienced. Anton was purely experiential to me. I experienced him. I didn't know him. I didn't love him. And I probably never would now.
I curled up on my bare mattress and tried to sleep.
*
I dreamed about Anton. We floated together, high in the sky above the city. Lights gleamed on his skin, flashed in his eyes, and when he reached out and touched me I flew with him. Or perhaps I was falling. My stomach tipped and turned as we tumbled in midair, his mouth finding mine, his hands on my body. Everything went upside down, and I lost track of the difference between the lights on the ground and the stars in the sky.
When I woke up I was nauseous, my empty stomach rumbling and roaring at me to put food in it. I'd neglected it all yesterday since the moment I'd found out my mother was going to rehab instead of chemo. Unfortunately I'd left everything at Anton's house, including my wallet. Not that I had anything in it except credit cards linked to Anton and the three faded dollars I'd had to my name the day Anton came into my life.
I rolled off my old mattress, stumbled into my kitchenette and spat bile into the sink for a few minutes until I felt less like death. Then I went over to Mrs. Andersen's door an knocked.
The old woman opened the door on the third try, wearing curlers in her hair and a lacy bathrobe in a startling shade of chartreuse. “What do you want?” she said.
I blushed. “Could... could I borrow a few dollars?” I asked. A few dollars could get me almost a week's worth of ramen. I wasn't sure what I would cook it in, but if worst came to worst I could just eat a block of dried noodles and call it a day. I'd done it before. I have a lot of flaws, but pride, I don't think, is one of them.
“Haven't you made up with your husband yet?” she demanded. “Seems like you should talk to him or something.”
I stared at her. “I haven't even been gone for a full day,” I said.
“So?” She waved a bony hand at me. “Time is wasting. Isn't your head on straight by now?”
I barked out a disbelieving laugh. “I've been trying to get my head on straight for years,” I told her. “I did therapy with, like, three different counselors before—”
“Bored,” she said. “You are boring me. If I give you five dollars will you go away?”
I shut my mouth and nodded.
She slammed the door in my face. I heard her rummaging around in her apartment before the door opened again and she shoved a five dollar bill in my hand. “Here,” she said. “Go get something to eat, and then for God's sake go home.”
“I am home,” I told her.
“You are married now, this is not your home!”
My eyes stung. “What matters to me is still here,” I said, and it wasn't a lie. My clay. My tools. My art. Why had I left it here? Why hadn't I come back? Had I really been so swept up with Anton and planning my stupid wedding, pleasing my husband and my mother, that I'd just... stopped being an artist?
Stopped being me?
Well, yeah. I'd already had that little revelation about ten times. But the realization that I hadn't touched clay in almost a month hit me like a bolt of lightning. I needed to sculpt. That would help me work through my problems, wouldn't it? And even if it didn't I'd have a nice piece of art at the end.
“Yes, well,” Mrs. Andersen said, oblivious to the personal revelations occurring in front of her, “go get to it. And be quiet while you do.” And she shut the door again.
Thoughtfully, I walked downstairs and out of the building, running on autopilot to the nearest S & S. The wind was fierce and the sky full of clouds, but I barely noticed the weather. I was too busy thinking about clay.
Just like Anton, clay was experiential. It could only be experienced, rather than thought about, but that didn't stop me from trying. By the time I checked out with ten packages of ramen and two dollars and change left over, my fingers were itching to get to work. Flipping my hood up over my head, I jogged back to my apartment. I was almost in the front door when I realized someone was watching me.
