Natalie was always forgetting things, he said. Natalie was under too much stress. Natalie had always been sensitive. Natalie should see someone. Natalie was overreacting. Natalie remembered conversations incorrectly. Natalie got worked up. Natalie needed rest. Natalie’s headaches were probably anxiety. Natalie’s friends didn’t understand her the way he did. Natalie’s mother—well, I was “formidable,” he once said with a smile that was meant to flatter and diminish me at the same time.
I saw the pattern long before Natalie named it, but naming is one thing. Leaving is another.
When your life is being narrowed by someone you love, the bars do not clang into place. They slide there quietly. By the time you realize you are trapped, you have often helped decorate the cage.
The station came into view at 2:41, a squat municipal building under hard white lights. I parked crooked, didn’t bother fixing it, and walked inside.
The desk sergeant looked up first, young and tired and halfway through a Styrofoam cup of coffee. Then his eyes moved over the silver hair, the camel coat, the spine I had carried like a second skeleton since I was thirty, and his expression sharpened.