After (7 page)

Devon looks at the woman while she’s looking back at Devon. Devon knows she has no choice now. She relaxes her arms. The bedding tumbles to her feet in a heap.

The woman lifts her chin with an expression of self-satisfaction. Her eyes travel from Devon’s face, down to her chest, and stop. She takes a small intake of breath, whispers, “Oh.”

Devon’s face burns. She looks at the floor.

For a moment Devon and the woman remain like that.

The room stills around them.

The woman quickly steers Devon toward the back wall of perfectly spaced olive doors. They must pass the two round plastic tables, all the eyes quietly tracking them. The woman does her best to shield Devon, but those eyes, like the ones in the courtroom, are sharp. They don’t miss the wetness of Devon’s clothes, dark and ringed like massive armpit sweat, except freakishly misplaced.

Whispers erupt. Soft at first, then urgent. A muffled giggle.

Devon’s hair prickles, pulls away from her scalp. They are discussing her and laughing. Somehow Devon’s legs function, move her across the room.

“Hey! What’s up with her boobs?”

The woman guard stops at one of the olive doors. D-12 is stenciled in white on the doorframe above it.

The woman releases Devon and unlocks the door. Devon counts breaths until the heavy door is pulled open, anxious to escape the eyes and finally hide. The woman moves aside, allowing Devon to pass.

Devon steps forward, peers in.

Light gray cinder block walls. Dark gray cement floor with a drain in the center. Stainless steel toilet and sink in the far corner. Blue plastic rectangular block against one wall—the bed, she guesses, because of the thin rubberized mattress that’s tossed over it. Three narrow slats of frosted plastic on the far wall, allowing three faint horizontal shafts of sunlight into the space. The faint reek of urine.

A tiny, walled-in cage.

Devon turns to the woman. This can’t be real. She opens her mouth to say something, to plead.

The woman nudges Devon forward. “This is your cell.”

Devon stumbles inside.

The woman follows behind. She indicates the three fixtures. “Bed. Sink. Toilet. And that’s about it for an orientation.” She looks at Devon. “I’m going to allow you to keep the mattress, only because I’ll be monitoring you every five minutes.
However
, if I determine that you’re not using it appropriately, out it goes. Mental Health should be by to talk to you soon.” She pauses. “You have any questions for me?”

Devon says nothing, her eyes locked on the stainless steel toilet in the corner. Horrifying. She can’t do this.

“Okay, great.” The woman nods her head. “Well, once Mental Health talks to you, you’ll get a booklet that spells out all the rules and regulations for this place. You’ll be tested on it sometime tomorrow. We do this so everyone’s on the same page and knows exactly what to expect here.” She hesitates, clearing her throat. When she speaks again, she’s perceptively talking faster. “One final thing. I’m very sorry, but I have to ask you to remove your bra.”

Bra?
Devon fires the woman a look of shock, crosses her arms over her chest.

“It’s for your own safety until Mental Health talks to you.”

Devon feels her throat tighten, and she closes her eyes. She is so tired, so miserable, so utterly worn down.

“Look.” The woman guard clears her throat again. “I don’t . . . I won’t give details, but bras can be used for dangerous purposes. As can blankets and sheets and even mattresses, the reason I had you leave your bedding outside.” She pauses. “So, please. Let’s just get this over with. Your bra?”

Wearing
bras is dangerous? Devon’s mind spins back before she can stop it. His lips on her face, leaving soft kisses on the tip of her nose, across her closed eyes. Her throat. She sighs, throws her head back, and his lips travel down the length of her neck. Tremors sizzle through her spine. His hands move gently down her back. Reaching under her shirt—slowly, cautiously—his fingertips touching her skin, an icy electricity. Unhooking the clasp . . .

Devon shakes her head, pushing the memory away. No, when bras come
off
, that’s when things get dangerous.

She opens her eyes. The woman guard’s hand is out, waiting.

Devon presses her lips together and slowly turns away. Reaching behind her back, Devon shakily works the clasp from the outside through her jumpsuit and the undershirt beneath. Under her collar, she loops a thumb under one strap and shrugs it off her shoulder, then loops and shrugs the other strap before pulling the bra off entirely and out one sleeve. Her breasts are heavy and sore and only reluctantly surrender their damp fabric, finally slapping painfully against her chest.

Devon balls up the bra in her fist.

The tears are building again, so close and ready to roll. She breathes deeply. Keep it down. Don’t break now. She grabs her breasts then because she must; they are hard and hot, that prickling again. The warmth wets the jumpsuit between her fingers, trickles down her ribs.

Devon turns quickly, thrusts the bra into the woman’s hand, not meeting her eyes. “It’s wet”—A small sob squeaks from her throat. “It’s so gross. I’m . . . sorry.” She covers her face with her hands.

“Oh, listen.” The woman’s voice turns gentle now. “Don’t be.” She pats Devon softly on the shoulder as Devon sniffs and gasps with her effort to force the tears down. “I’ll get it washed in the meantime. Okay? And bring you a clean jumpsuit.” The woman pauses, her hand lingering on Devon’s shoulder. “Everything’s going to be okay. I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but eventually it will. I promise.”

Devon’s resolve is caving with that woman’s simple gesture. Her body shudders with the strain of keeping it all contained: the shame, the pain, the watching eyes, the secret whispers, the end the end the very end of everything.

Just go!
Devon’s mind screams.
Please just go and leave me alone!

One last squeeze on the shoulder, then the woman’s feet step away, brush across the cement floor.

“Oh.” The woman turns back momentarily. “I almost forgot: welcome to Delta.”

The door clanks shut.

That sound again.

Heavy. Metallic. Final.

Devon stands with her face in her hands for a long time. Then she curls up on the rubberized mattress, turns toward the wall.

“Devon?”

Devon opens her eyes, squints at who’s peering at her from her opened door. The voice belongs to a woman, someone unfamiliar. Light streams from behind this woman and into the dark cell, washing her out, so all Devon sees is a faceless shadow of a shape.

A dream. Devon closes her eyes, draws herself into a tight ball.

“Devon.” The voice again, more persistent. “Devon, my name is Dr. Bacon. I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes. Would that be okay?”

Devon’s eyes snap open. She’s awake and cold. She sits up abruptly, looks around. Her back is slick with sweat, her undershirt sticks to it. A sweat that would fit if she were on a field with a ball, newly clipped grass under her cleats. But she’s not. She’s inside a tiny cell with a toilet in the corner and a cement floor. The sweat exists because of the rubberized mattress beneath her and under that, the molded plastic bed.

“Devon?”

Devon finally turns her eyes toward the woman at the door.

The woman steps out of the shadow. Devon can see her face and hair, one long braid that slips down her slender back to brush her waist. “Sorry I had to wake you,” the woman says. “I know it’s been a long, hard day. You must be exhausted.” She twists to kick a jam under the door so it stays open, then carries a folding chair into the room, placing it the perfect distance from Devon—not too close, but not far away either. She rests her hands on the back of the chair and smiles, her eyes intent on Devon’s face.

Devon likes the way this woman is dressed. Dark straight skirt that hits her ankles, three-quarter-sleeved tee, sports watch, hemp trail mocs. And that braid. Earthy, yet neat.

The woman is older than she seems; her hair is almost entirely gray.

“May I sit down, Devon?”

Devon scoots backward until her back hits the wall behind her. She pulls her legs into her chest. The front of her jumpsuit is stiff from the dried milk. Always leaking, then drying, and leaking again. She can smell it, too. An organic sort of sourness.

Finally Devon nods, Yes.

The woman sits, her hands folded loosely on her lap, and watches Devon with quiet eyes.

“I’m a doctor who works with the residents at Remann Hall,” the woman starts. “A psychiatrist. And I’m here to talk with you for a few minutes and ask you some questions.”

Devon stares at her knees.

“Devon, I know what happened. Why you’re in Remann Hall.” Devon glances sharply at the woman. Her breath comes quick and fast.

“I know, for instance, that you recently had a baby, and that the baby was found in a garbage can behind your apartment.”

Devon hugs her legs closer, hides her face in her knees. If these things are true, why is her mind so blank? The pain, yes—she can remember that. But . . . the other . . . IT . . . She’s shivery and sick to her stomach.

“And I suspect, Devon, that you are not feeling very good about yourself at the moment.” She pauses. “That’s why I’m here. That’s why it’s important that you try to talk to me now. About your feelings. About what you’re thinking.”

The woman waits a moment. Devon can feel her eyes on her, observing the bent head, the rigid shoulders, the long straight hair spread across her shins like a gauzy fan.

“There are many reasons why people do things like put their babies in garbage cans. The purpose of this visit is not to speculate on why
you
did that, or to determine your guilt or innocence. I’m not the police.”

Devon holds herself very still. If she holds still, barely breathes, maybe the woman will leave.

“I’m simply here today to make sure that you’re not going to do something to harm yourself. Do you think you can talk to me about that, Devon?”

Devon and the woman sit in silence. The woman shifts in her seat. The folding chair squeaks. Devon’s pulse thumps across her temples.

The woman will not leave.

Devon feels the adrenaline in her chest, the pumping of her heart. It’s the feeling of being in the goal when the striker gets a breakaway and is sprinting toward her with the ball. It’s just between the two of them—a battle of skill and decision, 1 v 1. The perfect shot or the perfect save. She waits. On her toes, her body loose. Her arms out to the side, her palms facing out and ready, the net open behind her. Still she waits. Patient for that striker’s touch. And then she goes, springing out of the box, cutting off the angle, diving for the ball, solid and real between her gloves.

This woman is waiting for Devon now. If Devon doesn’t move, then Devon loses. If you don’t come out of the goal but stay frozen on the line, the striker almost always scores.

This woman will not leave.

She isn’t like the woman who had visited Devon every day at the hospital, the social worker with the scraggly hair and decades-old glasses who tried in vain to coax information out of Devon. Devon had stared straight ahead at the wall across from her bed, at the happy two-parent African American family depicted in watercolor there—the summer picnic with the lemonade and bright sunshine, the birds in the sky. Then, Devon had said nothing, and the woman went away.

If Devon tries that tactic again and says nothing, Devon suspects that this woman will simply wait her out until she does.

“I think so,” Devon whispers at last. “I think I can talk . . . about that.”

“Good,” the woman says.

Something breaks inside of Devon then; the relief is palpable. “I’ve never done anything wrong in my life,” she says softly into her knees. “I’ve never
ever
been in a place like this.”

“Yes, I know.”

“When”—Devon swallows—“when . . . can I . . . go home?”

The woman doesn’t speak right away. “I can’t answer that. It may be a long time.”

Devon doesn’t move.

“Does this scare you, Devon?”

She thinks about the day she’s just had: court, the girls outside of her room, the eyes, the hot humiliation, the fear. Days and days, untold days, like this. She takes in a shaky breath. “Yes.”

The woman nods. “Does it scare you so much that you’d hurt yourself in order to escape it?”

Devon considers the question. She thinks about the times when she’d been scared, even terrified. She’d known many of those times. But her mom always came home, eventually. Or the shouting in the next room would stop—with a slammed door or tear-filled promises or the boyfriend moving out. Even That Night—the pain, it had finally faded.

Nothing had been as harrowing as That Night. Many thoughts had passed through Devon’s mind then, but hurting herself was not among them.

“No,” Devon answers, her throat so tight she barely gets the words out. “I won’t hurt myself.”

“I’m glad,” the woman says and, leaning forward, gently touches Devon’s hand. “I’m so glad to hear that, Devon.”

Devon raises her eyes to the woman.

And wishes, truly wishes, that she could say the same herself.

Because hurting herself would be so much easier.

A metallic snap, like the bolt of a gun, locking into place. Devon shoots upright, her feet tangled up in her sheet. Her eyes jerk toward her door, the source of the sound.

Her heart hammers and her body’s jittery from being woken up so abruptly. She looks around, takes stock of where she is. Cinder block walls. Cement floor. Stainless steel toilet in the corner. Heavy door, tagged with scratched obscenities and closed.