Shakespeares Counselor Page 0,67

like he wished he was anywhere but here. But Jack, I saw, was leaning forward to hear what I was saying.

"At first, I just wanted to beat the ... ones that attacked me." I picked my words carefully. I was being as honest as I knew how. "Then, I couldn't add to my parents' miseries any more by dying. Though I did think about suicide, often. No more fear, no more scars, no more remembering.

"But after a while, I began to get more involved in trying to make living work. Trying to find a way to make my days, if not my nights, productive and make a pattern to stick to." I took a drink from my glass of water.

"Is that what you think I should do?"

"I don't know what you should do," I said, amazed anyone would ask advice of me. "That's for you to figure out. You're a professional at helping people figure out what they should do. I guess that doesn't really help you right now."

"No," she said, her voice soft and weary. "It's not helping, right now."

I gave her the only piece of advice, the only philosophy, that I cherished. "You have to live well to defeat whoever's doing this to you," I said. "You can't let them win."

"Is that the point of living, to not let him win? What about me? When I do I get to live for myself?"

"That is entirely up to you," I told her. I stood up, so she'd go.

"I thought you, of all people, would have the answers, would have more sympathy."

"The point is, that doesn't make any difference." I looked Tamsin straight in the eyes. "No matter how much sympathy I have for you, it won't heal you faster or slower. You're not a victim of cosmic proportions. There are millions of us. That doesn't make your personal struggle less. That just increases your knowledge of pain in this world."

"I think," said Tamsin, as she and Cliff went through the door, "that I should have stayed at home."

"That depends on what you wanted." I shut the door behind them. I could see Jack's face. "What?" I asked, sharp and quick.

"Lily, don't you think you could have been a little more ..."

"Touchy-feely? Warm?"

"Well, yeah."

"I told her exactly how it is, Jack. I've had years to think about this. I don't know why everyone feels like they're supposed to be safe all the time."

Jack raised an eyebrow in a questioning way.

"Think about it," I said. "No one expected to be safe until this century, if you read a little history. Think of the thousands of years before - years with no law, when the sword ruled. No widespread system of justice; no immunizations against disease. The local lord free to kill the husbands, husbands free to rape and kill their wives. Childbirth often fatal. No antibiotics. It's only here and now that women are raised believing they'll be safe. And it serves us false. It's not true. It dulls our sense of fear, which is what saves our lives."

Jack looked stunned. "Why have you never told me you feel this way?"

"We've just never gotten around to talking about it."

"How can you even share a bed with me, if you hate men that much?"

"I don't hate men, Jack." Just some of them. I despise the rest. "I just don't believe - no, let me turn that around. I do believe that women should be more self-sufficient and cautious." That was probably the mildest way I could put it.

Jack opened his mouth to say something else, and I held up my hand. "I know this isn't fair, but I've talked as much as I can for one evening. I feel like I pulled my guts out for inspection. Can we be quiet from now on? We can talk more tomorrow if you want to."

"Yes, that would be okay," Jack said. He looked a little dazed. "You sure you want me sharing the bed tonight?"

"I want you in the bed every night," I said, forcing myself to reveal one more bit of truth.

And for the first time since the miscarriage, that night I gave him proof of that truth. After a long, sweet time, we slept that night back to back, me feeling the comfort of his warm skin through the thin material of my nightgown. I never felt he was turning away from me when our backs touched; we were just attached in a different way.

I lay awake, thinking, longer than I liked.