In the Stillness

CHAPTER 10



The rest of the week has gone well. I feel revived and focused, all from one phone call—with my mother of all people—promising a small break from my life. When I get home from dropping the boys off at preschool, I see Eric’s car in the driveway.

“What’s going on?” I ask as I walk in the apartment.

He sweeps me off my feet and hoots into my ear. “They offered me a position! UMass offered me a permanent research and teaching position!” He beams with excitement as every single thing he’s ever dreamed has just come true.

“Oh my God, really? Really! What’d you say?” I tighten my arms around his neck and kiss him.

He gently sets me down. “I told them I’d need to discuss it with my wife.”

See, that’s the thing about Eric. I would have jumped up and down screaming yes! all the way across campus. He needs to check with his wife.

“What’s there to discuss? It’s outstanding job security, a ridiculous salary . . .”

“And lots of lab hours,” he finishes my sentence. “A research position is awesome, Nat, but it’s all lab, all the time, with classes in between.”

I pull back a little. “How many more hours could you spend in the lab than you do now?”

“It’ll be kind of like it is now.” Eric takes a step back and runs his hand through his hair.

I rub my lips together and nod. “Okay,” I take a deep breath, “do they want you to start right after graduation?” Instinctively I curl my left hand into a fist and dig my nails into my palm.

“There’s really only one project they want me to help with over the summer, but other than that I’ll start in August.” He sits on the couch and I sit next to him.

“Well, the boys will start kindergarten in the fall, so I’ll be able to take classes during the day, still, right?”

Yeah, Nat, just turn this right into something about you.

Eric wraps his arm around my shoulders and pulls me in, kissing my temple. For some reason it feels like he’s consoling me for something he hasn’t told me yet.

“Of course. And since I’ll be fully employed there, I’m sure we can get a waiver for the residency requirement. Hey,” he nudges me so I look at him, “we might finally be able to afford the house on Dana Street we’ve always wanted. And,” a tender smile plays across his mouth, “we can realistically think about more kids.”

I nod and smile as tears fight their way to the surface.

“I’ve got to get back to campus to give them an answer. They said I could have a few days, but I don’t think we need a few days, do we?”

I shake my head. “I’m proud of you. Tell them hell yes.”

The door shuts, his car drives away, and I collapse into tears on the bathroom floor—blindly reaching for razors through my flooded eyes. This is everything we’ve wanted for him since we first met and, yet, it seems like a prison sentence somehow. I don’t even pay attention as I slash the razor across the skin on the tops of my thighs. I just want it to hurt more than I do inside right now.

I feel like a caged animal, rabid with need for freedom that was stolen from me over one careless night in grad school. But, it’s all real now. Eric has a job at a university, my boys will start kindergarten here in the fall, and, Eric wants more kids.

No.

* * *

By March 2002, Spring semester was back in full swing, the snow was melting, and Ryker was still in Afghanistan. We wrote each other constantly and talked as much as possible. For the meantime, school was going fine. I’d always been a good student, so even if I spent more time writing letters to Ryker than studying, I was staying afloat for the time being.

My social life, however, sucked. It bugged me to go out and listen to girlfriends whine about what “a*sholes” their boyfriends were being. After snidely telling one girl, “At least he’s around for you to be mad at and not fighting strangers with a gun right now,” Tosha put me on party probation for a few weeks. She said I was a buzzkill. I was.

However, when Tosha wanted a friend to go to a party at UMass with her to scope out a hot girl she’d met at the Amherst Brewing Company a few weeks prior, you bet your sweet ass she begged me to go.

“Please? Come on, it’s at her house so it’ll mainly be lesbians anyway.” As strange as it may seem, that was actually a plus.

I was thoroughly uncomfortable at the prospect of being hit on while Ryker was so far away. Even though I wasn’t doing anything wrong, it still felt wrong. I hadn’t heard from him in a couple of weeks, and I was starting to go a little stir-crazy. I missed him. I needed to get out.

“God, whatever. I reserve the right to drive your ass home at any point if you start making a total ass out of yourself.”

“Yay!” She hugged me and kissed my cheek “Now, go change into something hot.”

I gave her an incredulous look. “I’m not going to pick anyone up, Tosh.”

“Yeah, and neither will I if I show up with someone looking like you do now. Go. Change.”

A while later I was in the middle of some lesbian fantasy a college guy would kill for admittance to.

“Natalie, this is Liz. I met her a couple of weeks ago at the ABC. Liz, this is my kick-ass-roommate-for-life, Natalie.” I shook the gorgeous girl’s hand.

“Nice to meet you, Liz. Now, someone point me to the beer.”

I left my denim jacket on as I wandered through the house to find the kitchen. I recognized some of the girls from around our campus, and smiled politely to a girl who was in one of my sociology classes. While at the keg, someone came up close behind me.

“Yellow ribbon, huh?” A lanky girl with messy blonde hair pointed to the lapel of my jacket.

“Yep.” I smiled, filling my cup to the top.

“So are you just making a statement or something?”

“I’m sorry?” I asked, pulling my eyebrows together.

“Most of the girls here are anti-war. Are you, like, trying to be ironic?” She put air-quotes around ironic. She really did.

Oh, you’re a bitch.

“How is supporting troops and wanting them to come home ironic?” I mimicked her air-quotes.

At this point, Tosha and Liz were making their way to the keg. My cheeks started to warm under my anxiety.

“I’m just saying, don’t you think this is kind of a bullshit war?” She shrugged as if she had it all figured out. I felt Tosha’s hand on my lower back.

I kept my tone even. “I don’t know. And, no one will know for a long time. But, what I do know is that soldiers agree to follow orders when the President deems their service necessary. They don’t question it. They just protect us because it’s in their guts to do it. Even if you don’t support the mission, you have to support the soldiers.”

A few people stopped talking to listen to our conversation, neither one of us cared.

For a chick wearing a “Hampshire College” shirt, she sure didn’t seem to know when to shut up. “Typical. Jumping on the bandwagon cause-of-the-minute. Meanwhile those ‘valiant soldiers’ you talk about are making bank on our dime while they’re drinking on a base somewhere in the desert and f*cking the local women, or the women in their own unit.”

In a flash, the beer left the bottom of my Solo cup and splashed all over her face. A few people applauded and some gasped. My eyes clouded in rage and tears.

“You’re a f*cking bitch. In spite of that, my boyfriend would still serve your ass, since you’re too much of a coward to do it yourself.”

“Okay.” Liz stepped between us as the girl muttered an unflattering c-word under her breath. “You,” Liz turned and addressed her, “get out. I don’t even know why you’re here.”

“Where’s the bathroom?” I asked, trying to avoid bursting into tears in a room full of strangers.

Liz pointed the way and I pushed past the crowd and locked myself into the tiny bathroom. Closing the lid, I sat down on the toilet and buried my face in my hands, letting out every guttural sob I’d been holding in all semester. I hadn’t been questioned about the war, or my connection to it, at all. My first round did not go so well. My friends on campus knew about Ryker, and would ask from time to time, but I was mostly left alone about it.

A single confrontation with some hardened bitch left me trembling with anger and more anxiety. I shakily unclasped the ribbon from my jacket and stared at it in my hands.

“Please come home, Ryker. Please,” I whispered to the ribbon, as if it had a direct line to Ryker’s ears.

The tip of the pin caught my eye, and instantly I remembered how good it felt when I punched the shit out of my bathroom the day Ryker left. Immediately, my mind scanned to the Sociology of Women class, where we’d recently discussed self-destructive behaviors of women in the United States. I nodded along during the self-mutilation lecture, understanding a small bit of how it could feel good inflicting physical pain to try to dull emotional pain.

Still staring at the point on that pin, I brought it down to my wrist.

I’ll just try it once. Just to see if it still feels good.

I rolled up the sleeve of my jacket.

“Nat? Nat, are you okay in there?” Tosha startled me with a knock on the door.

“Yeah, I just need a minute, K?”

“K.” She mumbled to someone that I’d be out in a minute and the fading clomp of the heels of her boots announced her exit, while I continued rolling up my sleeve.

I brought the pin down to the top of my forearm, by my elbow, and barely pressed the pin in; I just dragged it lightly a few inches down my arm. Goosebumps sprang from my head to my toes and I watched the red mark trail the pin. Adrenaline immediately kicked in, and the sense of a rush took over. Taking a deep breath, I looked up at the popcorn ceiling of the bathroom and started again. Pushing a little harder this time, I closed my eyes and breathed in through my nose, out through my mouth, until I reached my wrist.

I cried a little more, but it wasn’t from a place of pain; it was from the euphoric rush of release. I wanted to slap the bitch that inferred my boyfriend and his friends were lazy rapists. I wanted to talk to Ryker whenever I wanted to, and I wanted to kiss him until my lips fell off. I wanted his body on top of mine as we made love in my dorm room. But, I couldn’t do or have any of that. All I could control was that pin running up and down my forearm until it started to bleed and I was high.

I quickly washed and dried my arm before rolling down the denim sleeve. I kissed the yellow ribbon once before pinning it back on my jacket.

Please come home.

* * *

Before I know it, I have to get my shit together and go get Max and Ollie from preschool. Looking down at my legs, I cringe; it looks like I ran through pricker bushes.

Shit. What did I just do?

I dump the last of the peroxide over my legs and throw my shorts in the hamper. I pull on a long, flowing skirt, plaster on my best mommy-smile and drive to pick up my boys.

“Hi Natalie, the boys had a good day today.” Miss Jennifer, the preschool teacher, is always smiling. Always. Why anyone chooses to work with 4-year-olds day in and day out is beyond me. But believe me, I’m glad someone does.

“Great! Hi guys, did you have fun today?” As I squat down to receive double-hugs, I feel the skin on my thighs pull against scabs that are working to form over my skin.

“So, any word yet from the university?” There are lots of upper-level students whose kids go to preschool here; this question isn’t uncommon.

“There is,” I force a proud smile, “but I need to wait for it to be official.”

“Well,” she leans in and whispers, “congratulations in advance.”

A few minutes later, as I’m buckling the boys into their car seats, visions of more car seats send my heart racing. Eric and I have never talked about having more kids. Hell, we didn’t even talk about having the kids we have now, and three seconds after telling me it was okay for me to start taking Ph.D. classes again he wants to knock me up?

You’ve got to be kidding me.

I reach for my cell phone and call Eric’s mom.

“Hey Grace, it’s Natalie,” I say when she answers. “Listen, I just picked the boys up from preschool, but something’s come up with a friend of mine. Can I drop them off at your house for, like, two hours or so?”

The ever bubbly Grace doesn’t hesitate in her reply. “Oh, of course, dear! In fact, why don’t you have them stay here through dinner, and come pick them up after? Eric told me the good news!”

“Isn’t it great? Thanks, Grace, I’ll be over there in a few.”

After dropping them off at their grandmother’s house, I stop at the gas station to buy a pack of cigarettes before calling Tosha and asking her to meet me at her apartment.