For once, she was glad that her brother was drunk. Glad that he had stumbled into his bed in an ale-soaked stupor and spent the night snoring and smelling like an old distillery.
He had been spared the sight of his younger sister hastening through the front door with her face drenched by tears. He wouldn’t have to deal with the sudden wave of worry that something terrible had happened to her. And she wouldn’t have to endure his pained eyes, his pressing questions, his guilt-infused hovering.
Once the door was closed, she collapsed into a chair beside the table. Her composure had been fragile, but resolute, until the man said that he knew what she felt for him. He had said it with such gentleness, such compassion. Such pity.
Pity. It was a thing she despised. Pity in peoples’ eyes when they saw the lame woman with the cane. Their sympathy upon seeing someone so young being a cripple. Driving home what she already knew to the core of her being. That she was broken. Damaged. Incomplete.
A fist pressed against her brow as she bowed over the table and wept. Weeks of anxiety and weariness and uncertainty all welled up to the surface at once, burning her eyes, spasming her throat with pitiful sobs.
The night passed with a surreal slowness. She remained at the table, hardly moving. Now and then her crying would subside, and she would crack open her swollen eyes to study the odd pattern of tear spots on the table’s surface. But then she would remember the tender way he tucked a flower behind her ear. The way he hugged her and promised he would go anywhere she went. The simple, open way she had declared that those sunny days were the happiest she’d ever had.
The way she had believed it.
Never had she felt so utterly stupid.
She pushed up from the table with a sudden jerk of movement, stumbling a little. She hobbled to the bedroom, leaving her walking-stick behind, and approached the dresser. She looked at her smudged, grimy reflection in the old looking-glass. There was little to see in the darkness. A faint, shadowy outline of her head and shoulders. She stood until her pupils widened, taking in the thin scraps of light that snuck in from the streetlamps outside. Until she could see her own eyes; two black blobs in a grey-black face.
“Don’t do it again,” she whispered to her reflection. Her breath trembled and hitched through her parted lips. “Don’t forget what you are.”
Her brother, Emory, stirred on his bed nearby. His own breath snorted heavily in his throat as he rolled over. She watched the shadowy lump of his body in the looking-glass, and then turned to limp back into the next room, careful to keep her steps as quiet as possible.
She stood in the darkness for some time, staring at nothing, her mind wandering across bleak plains and empty valleys of thought. She had no inclination to sleep. Presently, she stirred again, walking to the front door and tugging it open. The air beyond was cool and damp with the late hour of the night. It brushed over her moist cheeks, turning the tear-trails cold against her skin. She stepped out, and quietly pulled the door shut.
Her gait was wobbly and clumsy without her usual support, but she cared little. It was dark, there was no one about to care if she toppled over or stumbled. She walked slightly bent forward, her hands extended, ready to catch herself. The edge of the porch was reached without incident, however, and she sat down, lowering her legs down to allow her feet to swing freely. A nagging ache radiated from her right knee, shooting little streaks of pain both up and down; towards her foot as well as her hip. She ignored it.
There was always a slight marvel at how quiet the town became in the dead of night. Without the rattling of carts, the clop of hooves, the cries of merchants. The air was not entirely silent, of course. She could hear water trickling in a nearby drain. Far off, a solitary dog complained about being left outside. Her left foot thumped a slow rhythm as it swung out and back, striking gently against the stones of the porch. She turned her eyes to the sky, praying for a distraction from the lingering soreness in her heart.
As if on cue, a tiny rustling sound came from a spot near her right hand. She flinched, looking down, leaning away to the left and drawing her hand up protectively.
A rat was crawling along the edge of the stoop. Its long, thick tail was pale in the gloom, its body so dark it was nearly invisible. She did not cry out or leap away as many women might have done. Once her heart had ceased the galloping of surprise, her posture softened and relaxed, and she studied the creature. It did not run from her, but stood still, its nose lifted as if inquiring about who and what she was. She looked at the twitching, quivering whiskers and tiny, curled paws and smiled.
“You can’t sleep either, aye?” she said softly, and set her hand down again. The rat sniffed the air and crept closer, until she could feel the faintest sensation of its whiskers brushing against her pinky finger. “Don’t bite me, all right?”
The rat continued to inspect her hand with caution for several minutes. A miniscule paw was laid on her skin. She grinned at the insistent, endless tickling of its whiskery nose, and then she lifted her eyes back to the sky above the rooftops. Waiting for the rat to finish its nosy examination of her hand and scurry off again. She needed to think, to brood, perhaps to shed a few more tears.
Instead, the solitary paw became two paws. The rat settled the weight of its chest against her hand. When she turned to look at it again, it had gone still, its head turned to the alley as if it, too, wished to brood until the sunrise.
A breathy, mirthless chuckle was huffed through her nose. “Very well, then.” She remained there, offering her hand as a makeshift pillow, while the night wore on.
