An Untamed State (31 page)

“For what?”

“It’s Tuesday. I have to go to work.”

Michael looked at me like I had lost my mind. I did not appreciate it. “That’s completely insane, Mireille.”

“Don’t you call me crazy, Michael Scott Jameson. Work is the only thing I know how to do right now.”

He gaped as I walked away. I heard him muttering, “Don’t act crazy, then.”

I took a long, hot shower, grateful for American plumbing, and dressed carefully, trying to choose clothes that would mask the evidence of my
ordeal
—a long-sleeved white blouse and gray slacks. My clothes were very loose. I tried to cover the bruises on my face as best I could. I never was good at applying makeup, usually relied on Mona or a girlfriend to make me prettier when an occasion called for it. Michael paced the bedroom as I dressed, making idle threats. I ignored him. I had a job, one I was good at. At work, things would make sense.

When I finished dressing, I turned to Michael, who stood in the bedroom doorway, his large body filling the frame. I tried not to panic. I forced myself to smile. “How do I look?”

Michael shook his head. “You look like shit and completely exhausted. Babe, be reasonable. I can’t allow you to go to work.”

I stood across from my husband, and tried to raise myself to my full height, which is not much. Fortunately, I was wearing heels. “Allow me?”

He shut the bedroom door and it suddenly became harder to breathe. A thin sheen of sweat spread across my chest, my blouse clinging to my body.

“What are you doing?” I asked, my throat dry.

“I am doing what’s best for you,” Michael said.

My hands started shaking and I looked around the room for something, anything, tried to assess how I could protect myself and make my way out of this new cage.

Michael held his hands out to me. “You’re in no condition to go to work. We are going to the hospital, and together, we will start to figure out what we need to do to get you better.”

I held on to the wall behind me. “I’ve fucking told you about the hospital. Shut up about it, already.” I looked down at my feet. “Please get out of my way.”

He crossed his arms across his chest, stood his ground. He was a bully.

“I basically spent the past two weeks,” I said, my breath coming faster and faster, “locked in a cage, and you’re seriously going to try and keep me trapped in my own house?”

Michael snapped. “You wouldn’t have been in that situation if we weren’t in that hellhole in the first place but you had to drag us down there when we could have gone anywhere else for vacation.”

I was stunned. “How soon the truth comes out. You blame me for being kidnapped.” I bit my lower lip and nodded. “That’s rich. Wow.”

We were silent for several moments.

“I’m sorry,” Michael said. “I didn’t mean it like that, not at all. I just want to get you looked at. Miri, you look terrible.”

“So you’ve said but that is beside the point. You cannot trap me in this room.”

“I’m not trapping you, Mireille. I am trying to help you.”

I looked to our bedroom window, two stories up. Below, there were hedges, Bermuda grass, too long. I raised my head and looked Michael in the eye. “You know me well enough to know I will throw myself right out that window if you don’t get out of my way.” I pounded the wall. “You can’t keep me locked up.”

“I am not locking you up,” Michael said. “I am keeping you safe.” The calm confidence in his voice enraged me.

“You know nothing about keeping me safe. You showed me that the day I was taken, too, so don’t sit there and lecture me on something you know nothing about.”

Michael gasped, his face darkening. “That is incredibly unfair. You don’t know what I went through. Even you said I was taken too. Come on.”

“What you went through?” I said. “What you went through. Please spare me how hard this is for you right now. Please.” I ran to the window and opened it, looked down at the ground, did not care how far I might fall. I needed to be out of that room with the closed door and the walls that threatened to fall in on me and the man I barely recognized, the man who could hurt me. Michael rushed to me, gathering me as gently as he could in his arms, my back to his chest.

“Don’t do that,” he whispered into my hair.

I kicked wildly. “Put me down,” I shouted, even though my voice was ragged, hoarse, and not very loud at all. “Get your hands off me.” I gasped, trying to swallow air. A loud ringing filled my head. If Michael didn’t let me out of the room, I was going to lose it completely. I tried to figure out what he wanted from me, what I needed to say for him to let me go, for me to open the door, for me to get away. I started babbling. I don’t even know what I said.

When I had worn myself all the way out, Michael said, “I am going to let you go if you promise not to do anything crazy.”

I nodded, went limp in his arms.

Michael loosened his grip a little but didn’t let me go. “Promise?”

“I promise,” I said. “I can’t leave the house. I understand.”

“Do you?” Michael asked. I nodded again. He let go of me and turned me around. “We need to get you examined, and then we can figure out how and when for you to get back to work. You need time and doctors and . . . time.”

I wanted to tell Michael he had no idea what I needed because I had no idea what I needed. I looked at the door to my right. It was only a few steps away, no more than ten feet. I was fast, or I had once been fast. I was faster than Michael with his big, corn-fed body that lumbered when he ran. He was still too close. He had long arms. I had to be smart. I was no one. I could do anything.

I reached up and pressed my hand against his cheek, stood on the tips of my toes, kissed his chin. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” I said. “I guess I just want to feel normal.”

Michael’s shoulders dropped. He covered my hand with his, rubbing his thumb across my knuckles. “Of course you do, and you will.”

I took a step back and then another. “I should change before we go,” I said. “Work clothes aren’t hospital clothes.” I tried to smile. “What are hospital clothes anyway?”

Michael nodded, forced himself to laugh, and went to sit on the edge of the bed. As soon as his knees bent, I ran for the door. I ran even though it hurt so much I nearly burst into tears. Michael lunged after me. My hands were still shaking as I fumbled with the doorknob and flung the door open, letting a rush of cool air into the room. Finally, I could breathe a little. I ran into the hallway and down the stairs, Michael thundering after me, shouting my name. I ran into the kitchen to find my keys and Marisol, our nanny, was standing near the microwave, holding Christophe. Michael plowed into the room after me, and stopped.

I smoothed my hair, tried to appear normal or what I remembered as normal. “Good morning, Marisol.”

“Mireille,” she said, nervously. “It’s good to see you. I am glad you’re home safe. I was so worried.”

I forced myself to smile wide. “I am fine.”

“Shouldn’t you have breakfast?” Michael asked, his voice strained, clearly trying to salvage the situation without making a scene.

Christophe stared at us from Marisol’s arms, looking from Michael to me and back to Michael, his mouth open in a little O. The keys were sitting on the edge of the counter. Michael and I looked at them as if we were each willing the keys toward us.

“You should sit and eat,” Michael said. “Your clothes are hanging off you.”

I was the kind of hungry I did not know was possible but in its way, the hunger felt good. It was a comfort to be so empty. I had to hold on to that emptiness.

I straightened my clothes. “I don’t want to sit because right now sitting hurts and I don’t want to swallow food because right now swallowing hurts. Do I need to explain why or will you take me at my word?”

Michael reddened. “Mireille, don’t do this. We will go to the hospital and come home, and you can get some rest.”

Marisol began patting Christophe on his back. She looked as uncomfortable as I felt. “I should take him for a walk,” she said.

I limped to the end of the counter, grabbed my keys, and was so flushed with relief when I wrapped my fingers around them, I could hardly stay standing. “I am going to work,” I said. “Today is Tuesday.”

As I ran out of the house, Christophe started crying and Michael kept shouting my name over and over.

I drove out of the neighborhood and followed the familiar route to my office, the steering wheel slick against my sweaty hands. Nothing seemed familiar. It was quiet in the parking garage as I pulled into my space. I took a deep breath and studied the distance between my car and the elevator entrance. I calculated everything that might happen to me over that short distance. I opened my car door and planted one foot, then the other on the ground. I stood and closed the door softly behind me. A car slowly drove by and headed for the exit. I straightened my spine and tried to keep moving toward the elevator. I began sweating everywhere, my blouse clinging to my body. When I reached the elevator, it slowly hissed open but I couldn’t bring myself to step inside, to put myself in a cage from which there was no escape. I slowly backed away, then turned on my heel and ran back to my car.

I didn’t stop shaking until I was safely locked inside. I refused to look at myself in the rearview mirror. I couldn’t go to work. I couldn’t go home. I could drive, though. I drove to I-75 and I drove out of Miami. I kept on driving until I stopped seeing palm trees.

G
eorgia was tacky billboards—porn stores and fruit stands and Asian massage parlors and cheap hotels. It was dark as I neared Atlanta, sprawling strip malls and chain stores stretching into skyscrapers. I knew Michael would be terrified, livid. I did not want him to worry for me, for someone who was nothing. I wanted to call him to explain but I had no explanation so I sent him a text message that I was fine, that I loved him and I kept driving.

In Chattanooga, I got a room at a Holiday Inn Express. I put the
DO NOT DISTURB
sign on the doorknob and pushed a chair in front of the door and set one of the water glasses on the narrow arm so I would hear it fall if someone tried to enter the room. I saw that in a movie once.

There were ten voice mail messages on my phone and twice as many text messages. I texted Michael I had stopped for the night and was safe and said I couldn’t come home and I loved him and was sorry so very sorry. He texted back, “UNACCEPTABLE. I AM FREAKING OUT.” I typed, “I am too,” and turned my phone off. I pulled the curtains shut and sat on the bed, emptying my purse to take inventory of what I had with me—painkillers and Valium, a tampon, a pen with the name of my law firm engraved on the side, an iPod and headphones, three different shades of lipstick, a half-wrapped stick of gum, a Leatherman tool, an envelope with family photos we had taken at the mall as a joke, in the before, a hairbrush, my wallet. I had enough to start over. I took out one of the pictures of Michael, the baby, and I sitting in front of cheesy sunset backdrop, my husband and I grinning like idiots and curling our fingers into gang signs. I remembered taking the picture. As the flash went off, Michael shouted, “WESTSIDE!” I removed my shoes and set them neatly next to the bed and slid beneath the cover. I fell asleep holding the picture of my family to my chest, trying to pull the best parts of us inside me.

The hotel room phone rang in the middle of the night. The sound startled me, covered me in a cold sweat. When the ringing wouldn’t stop, I answered but didn’t say anything.

“You are in Chattanooga.”

A wave of nausea made me lean forward. I heaved. The Commander had found me. I couldn’t think. I didn’t know what to say. “Who is this?” I whispered. “How did you find me?”

“Mireille? It’s Michael, your husband, who is losing his mind wondering what the hell is going on.”

“Michael?”

“Yes. Of course it’s Michael. Please tell me you understand why I am freaking out.”

“I understand.”

“I am coming to get you.”

“No . . . no,” I stuttered. “I am not fit to be around other people. I am an animal. Just forget me, Michael.” I needed him to understand I was dead. I needed him to bury me, move on.

“Of course you are fit to be around me. You are my wife, Mireille.”

“I can’t do this. Forget about me.”