Emm, of course, leads the way.
By the time we return I have gathered enough courage to go to her. She is in her alcove. The daily jumbles, and my card I see, are in her hand.
I think I like your suggestion best.
She looks at me, confused.
About what I should do when I leave here. I’d like a walk in the countryside, and
I pause,
I would like you to come too.
I notice the change in her expression; I am crossing a line, I know. I keep going:
I want you to leave 17 Swann Street and go on a walk with me. I know I am not your sister, and I know you do not want to. But I also know you can and that there are Olympics every four years.
Pause for breath and courage.
We do not have to talk. We can just walk and breathe, but I need you to walk and breathe with me. I’ll wait as long as you need me to.
Why?
I shrug. Because that is what we do, Emm.
At six fifteen, I do not say goodbye to the girls. I cannot. In fact, as they line up for dinner, the last thing I tell them is a lie: I forgot to empty my cubby.
Do not wait for me. I will do that then follow you.
Direct Care does not contradict me. She and I watch them walk away, across the grass and into the house adjacent to 17 Swann Street.
I was a part of that picture for so long. How strange it feels to stand here. I am not cured. I am not ready; I am terrified of what is coming. But I lift my chin higher. Keep walking, Anna. I see Matthias’s blue car drive down the street.
My blue suitcase. One last walk through the house at 17 Swann Street. Its peach-pink walls, the orange-pink sky, the pink magnolia tree. Goodbye to Direct Care, then we leave her and all of this behind us, radio off, windows rolled down, my hand on Matthias’s shifting gears.
The car turns at the end of the street, and the house disappears. I am going home. We are going home. I get to sleep next to Matthias tonight.
91
The carols are playing on loop in my head, but I do not mind. It is nearly Christmas in a year I did not think would end. It is nearly Christmas and snowing outside, and for once it looks beautiful. It is nearly 7:00 P.M. Matthias’s stomach is grumbling on the couch.
He is half naked, half asleep. My eyes trace the contour of his chest. I know every crevice, every ridge, every freckle by heart. I spent the last six months rediscovering them. Rediscovering me and how my head fit under his chin, my ear over his heart. I can see it, just barely, pulsing from where I sit.
Six months since I last slept alone in Patient Bedroom Number 5 of a peach-pink house on 17 Swann Street. I have not been back. I am far from cured; it has been long and difficult. Eight A.M. to six P.M., every day. But every night I have had dinner with Matthias and fallen asleep next to him.
Dinner tonight will be quick and easy: spaghetti with tomatoes, basil, and rosemary, fresh from the pots on the windowsill. Matthias will chop some salad on the side, and there should be some Chianti left. Tufts of snow are floating delicately down Furstenberg Street. I wonder if it is snowing on Swann Street as well.
I think of that house and those girls every day. At 9:10, the morning walk. My heart breaks at morning rain, because it means they must stay indoors. At twelve thirty they sit down to lunch. I sit down to lunch too. I am scared with them and breathe with relief when, at one fifteen, it is done. Then they have apple cinnamon tea. I have ginger sometimes. I think of them most of all at dusk. I miss them terribly.
I did not choose anorexia. I did not choose to starve. But every morning, over and over, I choose to fight it, again.
The spaghetti is ready.
Matthias.
He stirs but his eyelids remain subbornly shut in protest. I go to the couch, kiss each, then his nose. Then his cheeks. And get carried away. Within seconds he is wide awake, fighting me off, kissing me, laughing.
When he finally lets me come up for breath to announce,
Dinner is ready,
the boy I love kisses the girl he married and says:
Dinner can wait.
My name is Anna, and I am the luckiest girl in the world. I am a dancer, a constant daydreamer. I like sparkling wine in the late afternoon, ripe and juicy strawberries in June. Quiet mornings make me happy, dusk makes me blue. Like Whistler, I like gray and foggy cities. I see purple in gray and foggy days. I believe in the rich taste of real vanilla ice cream, melting stickily from a cone.
I believe in love. I am still madly in love, I am still madly loved. I have books to read, places to see, babies to make, birthday cakes to taste. I even have unused birthday wishes to spare.
But now the spaghetti is cold and we are running late.
We sit down to eat. Matthias announces that it tastes good anyway, and that I have sauce on my chin. I laugh through my last slurpy bite. He has seconds.
We do the dishes clumsily. Orchid watered, lights out. Suitcases zipped, we dash out the door. We have a plane to catch. To Paris. Hey, hey.
Acknowledgments
Thank you,
Mon chéri, for not letting me quit; Merya, for not letting me quit;
Mamy, Papi, and Marwan, for not letting me quit; Scott, for not letting me quit;
Amy Tannenbaum, for not letting me quit; Claudia, Maggie, Colette, and Joe, for not letting me quit.
Thank you, Paul and Corky, Andrej and Jessica, Anne, Cooper, and Tika, for visiting 17 Swann Street.
Thank you, Leslie Gelbman, for falling in love with 17 Swann Street.
Thank you, Alienor Moore, Henri Mohrman, Riwa Zwein, Lynn Dagher, Helen and Karen Karam, Jane Swim, Isabelle Ho?t, Rose McInerney, Jen Enderlin, Dori Weintraub, Tiffany Shelton, and everyone at St. Martin’s Press, and most importantly, thank you to the girls at 17 Swann Street.
Yara
Author’s Note
17 Swann Street is a fictional place, but eating disorders are very real. Anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating, and others, are mental illnesses, not poor habits, and those who have them are suffering greatly. These diseases are quiet and deadly.
They do not have to be.
Anna is the luckiest girl in the world; she has anorexia, but she is alive. She is recovering because she has access to treatment and support from those who love her. Not everyone does, but everyone should. So if, while reading this story, you recognize bits of your own self or someone you love, please say something.
Contact a therapist or doctor. Call an eating disorder hotline. Help is available online and via text as well if you prefer. Talk to that someone you love. Talk to that someone who loves you.
Please say something. I know it is difficult. The conversation that follows will be too, but it could alter the story before it ends at 17 Swann Street.
I hope this helps.
I wish you well,
Yara
About the Author
Yara Zgheib is a Fulbright scholar with a master’s degree in Security Studies from Georgetown University and a Ph.D. in International Affairs in Diplomacy from Centre d’études Diplomatiques et Stratégiques in Paris. She is fluent in English, Arabic, French, and Spanish. Yara is a writer for several U.S. and European magazines, including The Huffington Post, Four Seasons Magazine, A Woman’s Paris, The Idea List, and Holiday magazine. She writes on culture, art, travel, and philosophy on her blog, Aristotle at Afternoon Tea. You can sign up for email updates here.