The gate clicked open and my mother came in out of the rain with a man behind her.
She didn't stop to hang up her coat. She just said it.
Celia: This is Gideon. He starts tonight.
He was tall and wide across the shoulders, and he dripped on her good rug.
A scar cut through one eyebrow. His eyes went around the hall like a list he was checking.
He looked at me last, and not for long.
Faye: I don't need a babysitter.
Celia: You need something.
Gideon: I'm not a babysitter. I'm worse.
Celia: She's brave at the wrong times. She took a photo of a man and handed it to the police, then went back to work like a fool.
Faye: I'm standing right here.
Celia: I know exactly where you are. That's the whole point.
Celia: Your phone.
Faye: No.
Celia: It wasn't a question, Faye.
The doorbell bought me about four seconds. Marcy, with my bags under both arms.
Marcy: I brought your stuff. Who's the wall?
Gideon: Bags on the table.
He turned both bags over on her hall table. My jeans and my underwear went everywhere.
Faye: Are you kidding me? That's her stuff.
Marcy: Wow. Okay. Fuck this guy.
Gideon: You called the cops. They found nothing.
Gideon: You went back to work the next night like nothing happened. That's how people end up dead.
Faye: I went back to my job. That's called living. You should try it.
I put it in her hand. She passed it to him without even looking, like a spoon.
Faye: That's my whole life in there. Marcy's number, my students, everything.
Celia: It's a phone. You'll get it back when the rest of you is safe.
Marcy squeezed my hand hard enough to hurt, then put her coat on backwards and left.
Marcy: Borrow a phone. Steal one. Text me.
Faye: I will. I'm not going anywhere.
Celia: One more thing. You go nowhere without him. Not the garden. Not the gate.
I went up to the room that was mine and had nothing of me in it, and shut the door.
Then I started digging through the pile of my clothes for my apron.
The bird was still in the apron pocket, cool and rough in my hand.
I made it for a kid in my class who never came back for it. It had a chipped wing.
I put it in the drawer under my socks, where nobody looks.
Faye: I'm still here.
Faye: I'm not disappearing for him, or for her, or for anyone. You hear me?
My voice sounded small in that big room. I said it again anyway, quieter.
A knock, and then the door moved before I said anything.
Gideon: Lights out at eleven. Door stays open. That's not mine to argue.
Faye: You don't knock and then walk in.
Gideon: I knocked.
He looked at me a second too long. Not like a problem on a list. Like he was trying to work out what I was.
Gideon: Sleep. You look like hell and tomorrow starts early.
He pulled the door half shut and stayed out there, a shape against the light.
I should have felt safer with a man in the hall. Instead my neck went hot and I couldn't stop listening to him breathe.
Everyone keeps choosing things for me and calling it love.
I closed my hand around the bird. Whatever he was, he didn't get to make me smaller.