When I Ran Away by Ilona Bannister (best books under 200 pages .TXT) 📕

by the bed rings. All three of them are on the line through some kind of conferencing Danielle set up. It’s like trying to have a conversation with a flock of chickens. Sharon: “Gigi, what the hell, where are you? Are you OK? You got everybody frantic over here.” Danielle: “Can you hear me, CAN YOU HEAR ME?” She screams down the line. Stacy: “Shut up, first, Jeej, are you safe? Are you hurt?” Me: “I’m fine, I’m in a hotel room and I’m fine.” Stacy: “Have you taken pills? Are you trying to kill yourself?” Me: “What? No, what are you talking about?” Danielle: “DO I NEED TO CALL THE AUTHORITIES IN YOUR COUNTRY?” Danielle screams as though she’s called a war zone where no one speaks English. Me: “It’s England, Dan, and no you don’t need to get the U.S. embassy involved.” Stacy: “Danielle, I swear to God…Gigi, sweetie, what’s happening, why did you do this, did you walk out?” Me: “I don’t really want to talk about it.” Sharon: “Well, you better start talking before I come over there and make you talk.” Me: “OK, I’ll wait for you to get the next flight over, Shar.” Sharon: “Did Harry hurt you, did he do something to you? If he did something to you I will fucking track him down.” Me: “Jesus Christ, no, I’m fine, I just—I don’t want to talk about it.”

They all start talking over each other, relieved that I’m OK but furious that I won’t say anything. Then Danielle says, “Oh, you know what, this is just like a hostage situation and we’re the handlers, so we have to talk to her and, like, ask her her demands and shit and then relay that to Harry, you know?”

Sharon half-shouts, “Great plan, Danielle, thanks. Jesus Christ, this girl, ignore her. Tell us what’s happening, Jeej.”

I take a deep breath and say, “No, you tell me, tell me what’s happening at home.”

That’s what they do. For an hour they catch me up on their kids and their men. Sharon’s looking for a house, Stacy’s getting promoted, Danielle’s experimenting with new nail colors. They meet up every Thursday in that bar on Bay Street after work. Ladies’ night. The guys stay home with the kids. It sounds nice. I say I wish I could be there. I say I wish I could be there every Thursday.

I say other things too. How I thought I was dying when they were cutting Rocky out of me, how he got sick, how I couldn’t hold him. How Harry’s rich and I’m not and we love each other but there’s things that neither of us gets about the other one. And it’s always going to be that way. Sukie and Tracy. The scar. Apron. Fucking up at work before I’ve even gone back. Lorraine and sleep deprivation and how I’m so worried about Johnny. Also that it’s August. Almost September. My body still remembers the grief even when the pictures in my head are starting to fade. And all I have left is Frankie’s voice on the phone. And Ma is sitting alone in her room too. Me: “It all went sideways after the baby. Nothing’s where I left it, you know? Nothing looks the same.” Stacy: “That happens to everybody, Jeej. Everybody goes through that.” Me: “But what do I do now? What do you do after you fuckin’ fall apart like this?” Danielle: “It’s like a rubber band, Jeej. You can stretch it till it don’t go no more, but it goes back to the same size once you let go. It ends up across the room but it’s still the same rubber band.” Sharon: “What? Dan, what the fuck are you talking about…” Me: “No, no, I know what she means, I know what she means.”

We keep talking, or I keep talking and they listen. Even though I hear Stacy’s kids screaming in the background, the beeps of the supermarket checkout line where Danielle is standing, Sharon still at her desk at work, distant office phones ringing. They have work emails and families to get home to and lunches to pack for tomorrow and dinner to make—still they listen to me. Danielle: “OK, honey, first things first. Did you eat today?” Me: “No. Just wine, but I got the pizza, it’s cold.” Stacy: “You can order wine with takeout? That’s awesome. Anyway, Danielle’s right, eat something, you drank too much on an empty stomach, that’s why you feel so crappy.”

I follow her instructions. It’s a relief to be told what to do. I pull over the pizza box and grab a slice. Sharon: “OK, now, next thing, I’m gonna text Harry and tell him where you are. Is that OK? I’ll tell him not to go there but I can’t guarantee it.”

I think for a minute; it may not be OK, but it’s inevitable. Me: “Yeah, OK.” Sharon: “OK, good, you need to get out of there, sweetie, I just looked at that place online and, oh my God, no wonder you’re so depressed, what a shithole.”

She makes me laugh. I’m surprised at the sound. Sharon: “You got a cigarette and some coffee? You need to sober up and make a plan. Step by step, write it down.” Me: “You and your lists, always with the lists.” Sharon: “That’s right, and I’m making one now that says number one, get Gigi the fuck out of the hotel.”

She keeps talking but that stops me. Out of the hotel. Retrace my steps, rewind, leave the hotel, walk back into my house, step over Harry’s shoes, pick up the baby. Go back. Stacy: “G, are you there?” Me: “Yeah.”     Am I here? Sharon: “OK, so Harry wrote back on the group text, ‘Thank God, please ask her if I can come and see her.’ What should I say? G? Gigi? You still there?”

London, a Wednesday in August 2016; Baby, 8 months old

I walk into the bedroom and Harry says, “Good morning, darling.” It’s 7 a.m. but I’ve been up since 3, never falling back asleep before there was another cry, another bad dream, another feed, another bed to be stripped in the night. The baby was always up twice a night. But tonight it was Johnny too. When Johnny has a bad night, growing pains in his legs or nightmares, it’s like my heart