Twice on the way back to the house I was forced to pull over and endure a series of dry heaves. The shivering intensified, and it was only through the sheer force of will that I was able to keep my hands steady on the steering wheel. I staggered into the house, up the stairs, and into bed, where I began what was to be several days’ discomfort and delirium.
I remember little of those days. Sometimes it was light outside, sometimes it was dark. At times I slept as though dead; at other times I rolled in my reeking, sweat-stained sheets, in an agony of nausea and pain. My head throbbed, my throat burned, and my belly ached from its exertions. At first I imagined that I had contracted some foodborne illness, but my body barely seemed to notice that the food was gone. Clearly, then, it had to be some kind of severe flu. Light exploded behind my closed eyes; I buried my head beneath my pillow, in fear of the sun. I must have managed to take some aspirin, because the almost-new bottle was half-empty by the time I came out of it; twice I woke from cramped sleep laid out on the bathroom floor. I also tried to bathe — I would wake up one night trembling in a tub full of freezing water, which I had no memory of having drawn.
When at last I came out of it, it was late afternoon, and a wind thrashed my bedroom window. I was surprised to find myself climbing out of bed to look out: the eastern sky was dark with roiling clouds, and the gusts carried a light rain that clattered against the pane like thrown gravel. I mustered enough strength to open the window an inch. The wind shouldered in, spattering the sill, and my hands upon it, with rain. Warm rain — a warm wind blowing warm rain. Relief spread through me. I was well again, and warm weather had arrived. Outside, the roof of the forest roiled like a sea, and the sunlight streaming from behind the house cast its long, strange shadow against the trees.
I shut the window and drew deep breaths there in the small, empty room. I could smell it now, my bed, my body: the sickness was gone, but its sourness, its stale spoor, was left behind. Shivering with hunger and weakness, I gathered up my filthy sheets and took them downstairs to wash; then I returned to the bathroom and bathed, scrubbing the past few days away. I dressed, went to the kitchen, and prepared myself a piece of buttered toast with trembling hands.
The toast was perhaps the most delicious food I had ever eaten in my life. The bread, thick and chewy, was flawlessly browned and crisped; the crust had been roasted nearly to burning, and it flaked off onto my tongue, releasing a full, rich, smoky roundness. The butter was sweet and half-melted, and I could feel its oily essence penetrating me, lubricating long-rusted synapses, opening up my mind and my senses after so many days of disuse. The toast was gone in seconds, and I made another piece, and a third, and a fourth, devouring them with robotic efficiency as I leaned against the kitchen counter.
Soon I was sated. But I felt no particular motivation to move. The washing machine churned and knocked in the laundry nook, working away at my bedclothes, and the afternoon sun blasted through the tiny window above it, bathing the kitchen in diffuse, blinding light. I was alone, and free to do as I pleased — and yet a strange emotion had begun to steal over me, a familiar one, that of being trapped, tested, manipulated. Scraped clean by my brief illness, I could hold up this emotion and examine it as though against a plain, uncluttered ground: in isolation, objectively. And I was given to wonder, had there ever been a time in my life when I had not been a pawn of those more powerful than I? My father, my teachers, my commanding officers? Indeed, was it even possible to live otherwise? I say this not to relieve myself of responsibility for my failings, for it was clear that, if I had always lived under the sway of the powerful, I had done so voluntarily, even eagerly. There is no comfort like the comfort of following orders. There is no relief like being relieved of agency.
In the midst of my drama of the year before, I was repeatedly counseled by my JAG attorney on the subject of what I should say during the hearings, which information I should volunteer, which I should keep to myself. I was coached at great length on how to tell my story so as to cast myself and my superiors in the best possible light, and at the time I regarded this advice as invaluable, and followed it to the letter. Indeed, the advice was correct, insofar as I was merely reprimanded and put on indefinite leave, and I ought to have felt gratitude and relief, and been proud to have made the best of a bad situation.
But then, as now, I felt this strange emptiness, this negation of self, as though there were some other course of action possible, one that might have produced a more satisfying outcome; and this possibility hounded me through my days of waiting and worry. Unfortunately, however carefully I considered and reconsidered my circumstances, I could not think of what this other course of action might be. Every day I was assured, both by my lawyer and by my commanding officer, that everything would work out fine, and the tacit assumption, which no one seemed to question, was that everything working out fine was what we all wanted. For what defendant, facing the accusations I faced, would not desire such an outcome? To be exonerated and set free in the world, to live at last in peace and quiet.
Today, in my newly renovated house, on the remote swath of forest that was mine and mine alone, I could not think of any better outcome. And yet I felt this uncertainty. That I might have assumed control of my destiny. That I might have defied my betters. That I might have saved my parents, or remained close to my sister, or averted the unfortunate circumstances that led to this drastic change in my relationship to the army.
The washing machine stopped, and I transferred my sheets to the dryer. I drank a glass of water, and stared out the living room window at the now-setting sun. When the dryer was finished, I tried to replace the sheets and blankets on my bed, and somehow, the act of stretching the fitted sheet over the mattress — tucking the fabric under each corner and smoothing down the wrinkles and folds — managed to drain every last bit of energy from my body. I fell onto the mattress and did my best to haul the bedclothes over myself, but it didn’t matter. Despite the early hour, I was asleep within minutes.
I awoke in darkness. The glowing digits of my bedside clock were missing, though I could barely discern its outline looming there beside my head; I must have unplugged it by mistake while I was making the bed. And clouds must have moved in to cover the moon, because its light was missing from the sky, save for the faintest glow emanating from the mist.
What had roused me? I was entirely awake and alert. I closed my eyes and strained to hear.
There — the scrape of metal, faint and muffled, as though from some distant part of the house.
I stood up, gulped a breath, and held it. My blood rushed in my ears.
I heard it again, and this time I recognized it — the rusty steel doors that led to the backyard from the cellar. Something was trying to get in.
I considered racing down the stairs, in an effort to intercept this intruder. But something led me to the window instead, the one that faced north, the same side the cellar door was on. I parted the curtains and thumbed open the lock, and as I reached down to pull up the sash, I heard the clatter of the open door against the stone abutment that supported it.
It was, as I have said, very dark. But in the faint light of the cloud-covered moon, I could make out a figure, climbing up the cement stairs and into the yard. It was not an animal, but a human figure, and before I could discern any of its features, it vanished into the shadows of the trees. I could make out some motion in the murk — the figure was headed for the forest edge.
Without hesitation, I spun from the window, dashed down the stairs, and threw open the door. In moments, I had arrived at the treeline, in the general area where I believed the figure to have disappeared. I remembered very clearly the impassible and quite hazardous deadfall that lay all over the forest floor, and my own struggle to penetrate more than thirty yards into the trees around my house. The night was cold, and I wore no shoes — to forge ahead would be foolish. Instead, I leaned in, my hand braced against a maple, and called out, “Who’s there!” I could see nothing — the darkness in the woods was total.