The Dogs of Babel

TWENTY-SIX

The night of the death-mask incident, Lexy didn’t come home at all. I sat up all night waiting for her. Finally, around eight in the morning, I heard her key in the door.

She walked in looking tired and disheveled. She didn’t seem surprised to see me sitting in the living room.

“Hi,” she said. She wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Hi.”

She just stood there, looking at the floor, her keys in her hand.

“Where have you been?” I asked.

“I drove to Delaware and back.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I just started driving. I wasn’t going to come back.”

“Ever?”

“Ever. I was going to just disappear.”

“That’s crazy, Lexy.”

She laughed without smiling. “Yeah.”

“What made you change your mind?”

“I started thinking about you sitting here waiting up for me. I couldn’t leave you sitting here.”

“Well, I wish you’d called,” I said. “I was afraid…” I didn’t finish.

“I’m sorry,” she said. There was a long silence. “You’re scared of me now,” she finally said.

“Well, yeah, a little.” I could hear my voice rising. I was angrier than I realized. I stopped and regulated my tone. “You were out of control,” I said as evenly as I could. “I didn’t know what you might do.”

“Well, I didn’t know either.”

“God, Lexy,” I said, and this time I couldn’t keep the anger out of my voice. “Do you know how much it terrifies me to hear you talk like that? Do you know what it’s been like for me, sitting here all night, not knowing if you were alive or dead?”

Finally, she raised her eyes and looked at me. I could see her face crumpling. “I’m sorry,” she said. She started to cry. “I’m sorry.”

I watched her stand there crying, in the middle of the room. I couldn’t get up and go to her. I couldn’t.

“Lexy, I think you need to get some help,” I said. “It scares me when you get like this. You need to talk to someone.”

She began to cry harder. “You think I’m crazy,” she said.

“No, I don’t think you’re crazy. I just think it might help you to talk to someone.”

She turned from me, still sobbing. “I shouldn’t be here,” she said. “I should go away.”

“No,” I said. “That’s not what I want. I just want to talk about this.”

“I don’t want to talk now,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “I’m too tired. I just want to go take a shower.”

She turned and walked away. She made her back look hard and sturdy as she walked, but as soon as the bathroom door closed, I could hear her sobbing grow louder. I heard her turn the shower on. I sat on the couch for a few moments more, then got up and walked to the bathroom. I knocked on the door.

“Lexy,” I called. “Let me in.”

“No,” she cried. “Leave me alone.”

“Lexy,” I said. “It’s going to be all right.”

“Go away,” she said. “I can’t look at you right now.”

“Lexy, we need to talk about this.”

She didn’t answer me. I could hear her ragged weeping through the door.

I tried the doorknob and found it was unlocked. “I’m coming in,” I said.

Lexy wasn’t in the shower. She was sitting naked on the tile floor, her knees gathered up to her chin. Her face was hidden in her hands. The room was beginning to fill with steam.

The sight of her sitting so forlorn broke something inside of me. I didn’t feel angry anymore.

I knelt down beside her. “Shh, Lexy,” I said. “It’s going to be okay.”

I reached out to touch her, but she jerked away.

“Go away,” she said. “I don’t want you to see me. Go away.” She turned her blotchy face toward the wall.

“I’m not going to go away,” I said.

“Well, then I will,” she said. She was on her feet in a minute, but I was right behind her. I grabbed her and folded her reluctant body into my arms.

“Let me go,” she said.

“No. I will not.”

She cried and struggled, but still I held her fast. I stood as strong as a tree, rooted firm to the ground. The more she pulled, the tighter I held.

“I won’t let go,” I said. “I will not let you go.”

Her skin was hot as iron. Her skin was hot to the touch.

She let out a guttural sound, an animal noise of frustration and resistance. And still I held her fast.

“Let me go,” she hissed, wriggling in my grip. She was slippery as an eel. And still I held her fast.

We stood together in the bathroom steam, with Lexy twisting and crying out and me holding her tight, until her sobs quieted and I felt her body relax. Until at last I held her still and mother-naked in my arms.

“My poor little girl,” I said into her hair. “You always thought you were the elf queen, didn’t you? But you’re not the elf queen. Don’t you see? You’re Tam Lin. You’re Tam Lin. And I will not let you go.”

Later, when Lexy had calmed down enough to talk and the water in the shower had run cold, I asked her what she was going to do about the mask.

“I’m going to make another one,” she said, “and I’m going to paint it exactly the same way. In spite of everything, I think I made the right choice to do it that way. If the parents don’t like it, I’ll make them one that’s more realistic. But I think they’re going to like it. I just wish I’d trusted myself from the beginning.”

“Yeah,” I said. “So do I.”

The parents did love the mask. The first mask, the ruined one, lay untouched on the basement table for several weeks; Lexy and I walked carefully around the wreckage, neither of us quite willing to throw it away. And if the colors on the second mask weren’t quite as bright, if the flowers painted across the face didn’t seem to dance quite as freely in the wind as they had before, the girl’s parents never knew the difference.