Justafta (91)

PSI-5

Ann staggered up the porch steps and into the front room like a gunshot victim — pale and shuddering, with her arms wrapped around her middle as if trying to hold in the blood. She should’ve got into a taxi, that would’ve been faster. She was not entirely sure how she got onto the bus. Milo had gotten very quiet after Calliope hit them. Ann was afraid.

She needed to be home. The mirror in the bedroom. It was safest there. She needed to talk to him. She had been trying to talk to him but he wouldn’t. He was too scared, and she was too scared. They needed the mirror in the bedroom. They needed to be safe.

I’m not supposed to be scared. I’m supposed to be the strong one.

I’m supposed to protect him. Why didn’t I know that would happen? Why didn’t I see it?

She had wanted him to be happy. He had finally reached out for something that would make him happy.

But the way Calliope described what he wanted, what would have happened… That wouldn’t make him happy. That wouldn’t make anyone happy. And she let him ask for it.

It was like he wanted to go into Hyacinth’s doctor bag and take all the pills and she smiled and said, Sure, Milo. Let’s do that.

No wonder he was sick. She was afraid he was dying. And she let him do it.

This was so very big and so very wrong and it needed to not be like that but she couldn’t even get to the point where she was thinking about fixing it and scared of that, and panicking with no idea how to do that, because she didn’t know how wrong it was yet.

It hurt. It hurt her. And Calliope hadn’t even been yelling at her. Calliope had been yelling through her. Milo was the one who wanted this. He was the one who reached out and got slapped for it. And he had no idea how to cope with that. Ann was the one who wanted things and risked things and got hurt. Milo was a child. Milo was this fifteen-year-old… No, not even that. He’d stopped and withdrawn before she was there to protect him. He was this little boy in a metal bed who always needed to scream and couldn’t and he didn’t understand what was happening to him. He wasn’t picking up any nuance here. He didn’t understand ‘mad,’ or ‘hurt,’ or ‘mistake,’ or ‘forgiveness.’ He wanted Calliope to like him (not even love him, like him) and she said no and hated him and that would be forever.

He was still thinking that. He wouldn’t talk about it. He wouldn’t listen to her when she tried to tell him it wasn’t like that. She didn’t know if he would understand, if he could understand, but he wouldn’t even let her try. He was bleeding out and she couldn’t even get her hand over the wound.

She closed the bedroom door quietly and she edged her way to the mirror. No loud noises. No sudden movements. No more pain. She wasn’t sure if that would scare him away or kill him, but she didn’t want either. Safe, and quiet. And maybe it would stop getting worse. And maybe then she could do something about it.

She put both hands on the dresser and leaned into the mirror. “Milo? Honey?”

He was there. He was holding himself and looking out at her with wide eyes. He wasn’t crying. He was still.

She put her hand on the glass. He shied back from it and shook his head. She put her hand on the dresser again. “Can I just talk?” she said softly.

I want to have a suitcase.

She nodded. “Milo, if you decide you want to go, we’ll go. But we need to try to talk about it. I know this hurts…”

He shook his head. Just one suitcase, Ann, okay? His eyes spilled over tears. You don’t have to go.

“Milo…” Her heart turned over in her chest. She crouched nearer to speak to him. She kept her voice even. “Milo, that is not having a suitcase. You can’t have a suitcase if you do that. You can’t have anything if you do that. Do you understand? Do you know that’s what you’re talking about?”

He nodded. He was shedding tears, one after another, but not sobbing or shivering. I know. I just want to pretend I can have a suitcase when I go, and maybe a dress in it. Maybe our dress we used to share, with the flowers? I know I can’t have one, I just want to pretend, okay?

“Milo, I don’t want you to go,” she whispered. She began to sob. “Milo, I don’t want you to go! I won’t let you!”

He cringed from her and pressed his hands over his ears.

“Please, I’m sorry,” she said, very soft. “I’m scared. You’re scaring me.”

Do you hate me because I want a suitcase?

Want. Not wanted. Want. He still wanted to do it.

She shook her head frantically. Her voice was barely a breath. “I don’t hate you. I love you.” No, but he didn’t understand that! Oh, gods, for a minute there she thought he had, like a normal person. She had forgotten, and this was what it got her. He wasn’t normal, you couldn’t treat him that way and you couldn’t talk to him that way. She metered her words, “Milo, I like you. I want you to stay. You’re my best friend.” And now she tried to hurt him. He was in so much pain, but he would understand that. He needed to understand it. “Milo, please don’t hurt me and take away my friend. We don’t take things away. You know how bad that is.”

He wasn’t crying anymore. He didn’t feel better, he was too scared. He was less scared when he thought there might be a way out.

He crossed his hands over his mouth and he shook his head. He said words that hurt. He didn’t want any more words. Not now. Not ever.

Ann said words. She stroked the surface of the mirror and she said what Milo had said to her, when she had been so small and so fragile and hardly there at all.

“You’re so pretty. You have the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen. Everyone’s going to love you. You’re going to have so many friends. You’re going to have beautiful long hair and so many dresses. We’ll buy you shoes. You can have all the dresses, okay? You can have all the shoes. Does that make you happy? You can have all the colors. Please smile. You have such a pretty smile. You can have pink, and red… You can have taffeta. I’m so proud of you. We’ll get you a corset. It can just be your corset and I won’t have it even a little, I just want you to be happy. You’re so pretty. You can have lavender, and silk. You’re perfect. It’s okay. You’ve always been perfect. You can have all the dresses…”

He wouldn’t answer or look up or smile. He wouldn’t want all the dresses, or any dresses — maybe that one dress, his half of the dress, and the suitcase. But he stayed. She knelt and she leaned on the dresser and she looked in the mirror and she talked and talked.

Hyacinth rapped on the door and said it was dinner.

“Cin…” Ann said.

Help me.

She couldn’t say it. He wouldn’t talk, but he could still stop her from talking.

Then I won’t say anything. She’ll know something’s wrong.

She smiled and said, “Thank you. I’ll be down in a minute. I fell asleep.”

She stared in the mirror. Milo frowned and shook his head at her.

She pushed him sometimes, made him walk or get changed or hold his head up and try to be brave. She did it to help him. He never did that to her.

But of course he could if he wanted something badly enough.

He wanted to be nothing, be invisible, and he walked her out in front of him like a hostage with a gun to her head. He made her smile, somehow that was the worst part. He made her fix her face and her hair and her dress and walk downstairs and eat dinner and smile.

Even when he always wanted to be screaming, he didn’t have to smile.

She wanted to cry. Cry out. Milo, this hurts.

Yes. Do you hate me yet?

She wouldn’t do that. He could push her, but he couldn’t make her do that.

They had dinner and they were nice to everyone and they didn’t hurt anyone or make anyone mad and they excused themselves afterward and went back upstairs and they were exhausted. They shut the door and merged it closed and sank down to the floor in a puddle.

Ann sobbed, and Milo didn’t do anything.

Ann crawled to the dresser and pulled herself up on it and looked in the mirror. “I still like you, Milo.”

He wouldn’t talk, but he was there.

Ann got undressed and put them to bed. She hugged the blanket and pillow and cried, but not loud enough for anyone to hear.

———

They always woke up early, whichever one of them it was, because Milo liked to eat alone. Even if he didn’t have to go in early, or at all, he did that. If he knew Ann had to be up late, he’d go back to bed after or nap, but they woke up early and they got up early because anything else was scary.

Ann rolled out of bed and went right to the mirror. Milo had a late shift. Afternoon. She had time and she was going to need it. She wanted him to get changed and go to work. She wanted him to be him. Even if that meant tears and pain and hiding in the closet and hurting himself. He needed to be him. Black and white and gray and pants, and braided hair, and watches. Constant terror. A hurt, broken person but that person, not another. Because if he wouldn’t do that, then it was only a matter of time before he had his suitcase, and he could keep her from crying for help until he was gone.

Her eyes were awful. Bloodshot and swollen, and the bruise under the left one was dark and obvious. Milo’s glasses would hide that a little, but she might need to help him with some makeup.

“Milo,” she said gently. She was hoarse. It had been a lot of talking yesterday, but she was going to do however much more it would take. She would have… maybe until ten thirty? Eleven? She needed to get him dressed and onto the bus. It would be nice if she could get him food or coffee, but that wasn’t really important.

She was supposed to have a show tonight. If she could get a note to the club and cancel that, she would, but that wasn’t important either. She thought they’d forgive her if she just didn’t turn up, they might even be worried about her, but she didn’t care if they fired her. There were other clubs and other shows. There was only one Milo.

He wasn’t in the mirror.

“Milo?” She straightened and moved, as if he might perhaps be behind her.

There was Ann in the mirror. Ann looked at Ann in the mirror.

He can’t… No! He can’t!

They worked for so long and so hard to be two. He couldn’t just leave her like that. He couldn’t just go while she was asleep.

His glasses were on the dresser. She snatched them and put them on.

Ann looked at Ann in glasses in the mirror.

“Milo, don’t do this.” The tears began to run. She pulled her hair back and began to braid it. “Milo, don’t hide!”

Ann looked at Ann with glasses and a braid.

“We don’t take things away,” she pleaded with her reflection. She gripped both sides of the mirror and held tight. It was cold. “We don’t hurt each other. We don’t take things away. Milo.” She opened her mouth to scream, “M…”

He stopped her.

Don’t, they’ll come. Don’t, they’ll all come. Please, Ann, don’t make them come.

She broke down sobbing, but she didn’t drop her eyes or hide her face. She stared in the mirror. She stared at Milo in the mirror.

“Don’t… scare… me!” she hissed.

I want…

“I don’t care what you want!” She stripped off the nightgown and began to dress him. She stared in the mirror. She wouldn’t let him out of the mirror. “Now we do what I want! You don’t get to make decisions anymore!”

He looked hopeful.

“Not… like… that,” she snarled, teeth clenched. “You’re going to be you, and you’re going to be normal, and you’re going to go to work! I’m going to be with you and I’m going to help hold you up because I know how much this hurts right now, but you are going to be you, and that’s final!”

Milo laid both hands on the dresser and bowed his head and closed his eyes. He was pale and shaking, because it did hurt — very much — and his braid was fraying because Ann had put it in very fast and didn’t even tie it. He didn’t try to fix it. He didn’t do anything. Couldn’t.

It was less when he was Ann. Because Ann was being Ann and doing everything, and sometimes there wasn’t anything at all because he was thinking about shoes or he had an idea for some new thing and he was figuring that out. When he was him, he had to do everything, he had to feel everything, and right now that was hurt. He had to remember why and think about it.

I don’t want to have work, Ann.

Not that he didn’t want to go, although he didn’t, but he didn’t want to have any. He didn’t deserve any. They both had their own things because they were two people, and he didn’t think he ought to have his things anymore. He didn’t think they ought to go back to being one either. He thought this part of him should be over. It wasn’t good. It didn’t even feel good. Ann could be one and be happy and he could take everything bad and pain and just not be.

She knew that without him putting it into words and that was why she wanted him to go to work. She was pushing his things at him. Take them. Use them.

Ann, I can’t even cry like I want to.

He could hurt himself. Hit his head. Bite. He thought she might even let him pull their hair out, if he wanted, because that was one of his things, but he didn’t want his things.

He could see his wall with the flowers a little bit in the mirror. He was afraid to turn and really look at it. It hurt him. He wanted it and he didn’t want it. He wished he could crawl into it and pull all the colors close around him like Ann’s dresses and maybe never come out. But it was just flat and not even real flowers. He shouldn’t have drawn them there. They were going to be there forever and he’d have to look at them and remember why.

Calliope…

Oh, please. I can’t.

Milo, you have to. It happened. And I’m not going to let you just end.

Calliope liked him, didn’t she? She let him steal her colors and draw the flowers, and she said it was okay. She took him to buy more colors so he could draw more, and she drew with him, and they listened to music. She gave him her record player to fix! She smiled at him so much. She made sandwiches and chocolate milk. She did all those nice things. She wasn’t pretending about that. And she was nice. She was so nice. She didn’t always pay attention and sometimes she hurt him — like when she played the music and he didn’t understand about that being music yet — but she didn’t mean to hurt him. She really did like him, and he had lost that. He had done something to her to make her be mad and hate him and hurt him on purpose. That didn’t just happen. It was his fault. It was what he made Ann say, what he asked her to do.

But marrying someone was nice, and wanting them to be safe. People who liked each other wanted that for each other. He liked Calliope and he wanted that for her. They said that. Wasn’t that what they said?

Ann, we did tell her about the pension, didn’t we? Was it that she had to wait and she couldn’t be completely safe right away? Does she want to marry someone else who could take care of her even if they got hurt or died right now? Or… Should I have gone full-time and waited until I was eligible?

No, Milo. You’ve got it absolutely wrong. The thing doesn’t need adjusting. This idea you had, this machine you built, it won’t keep Lucy and Calliope safe. It will make them unhappy. It will make you unhappy too, and then it will make them go away. Then they won’t be at Hyacinth’s house anymore and they will be unsafe. It’s a machine for eating happiness and ruining everything. It can’t be fixed. Calliope was right about it.

He stared into the mirror with hollow eyes. Would she have been so unhappy being married to me? Would she have hated me that much?

Ann shook her head. No, honey. I think she would’ve liked being married to you, if she could’ve had that. But… She looked pained. She couldn’t have had very much you without me to help you. I think we forgot that. The image of Milo and Calliope sitting on a couch and not touching, with no one to push them together, recurred.

He didn’t see it that way. He didn’t know about touching and eye-contact and smiles — expression. He didn’t really know how people needed that, or that he needed that. He only knew how he felt. She could’ve had me. She always had me. All she had to do was say she wanted me, and I would’ve gone. Forever. He bowed his head. Aren’t I enough, Ann? I’d be kind to her, and careful with her. He accused the mirror. His eyes grew fierce. I’d never hurt her! I know all about things that hurt people! And I’d keep her safe! He dropped his head again and shuddered. That wasn’t what he did. Milo didn’t keep people safe. Milo was kept safe. Milo hid. Ann kept people safe, and Milo had told Calliope he would stop being Ann. So they could have a pension and so Lucy could have a normal dad.

Couldn’t I be like you, Ann? Couldn’t I be like you if I had someone to keep safe? Couldn’t I be strong and good like you instead of weak and bad and awful like me? She didn’t think I could do that, did she? That’s why she doesn’t want me anymore. That’s why she won’t ever want me again.

Milo…

He had gone into the closet and it was hard for her to talk to him there. She just had to hang on and try to keep it from getting too bad. He hurt himself, more than he had in a long time, but not badly like he used to when it was just him alone. Eventually he was able to cry — a little, Milo’s tears worked like a balky faucet — and eventually she got him out of there and back to the mirror. He wouldn’t do any more talking about Calliope, or even thinking. It hurt too much, and he had already made up his mind. She spoke to him about practical matters. You’re going to go to work. No, that’s under your shirt, it won’t show. I’ll help fix your eyes. You’re going to go to work. Because it’s going to hurt less than staying here and just thinking about it all day. No, you need to stay you. I’m still your friend, Milo, but you’re going to go to work…

Eventually, he went to work.