The Place Between Breaths

by An Na

  “Mama?”

  Her mother’s hand quickly jerked out, clasping her ankle. With a violent yank, she was back under the table. Mama held out a knife.

  “We are not going to escape. We have to face the train. We have to do it together. You have to be brave. We are not going to let the train take us away.”

  Mama held the large kitchen knife straight up in the air; the whites of her knuckles gleamed while clenching the handle.

  She stared at the sharp, shining blade and began to tremble.

  Spring

  I shudder in terror as I make turn after turn in the hallway. With each step, each corner, the planes of this world shuffle like playing cards. By the time I find the familiar centrifuge machine marked number four, I am ready to cry from pure relief. I grip the edge of the machine and gather my thoughts. I know where to go from here.

  With my vision kaleidoscoping, I edge along the wall and open the door to a familiar lab room. I reach the assignment postings. The singular line of the clipboards hang one right next to the other. I count them over and over again, the repetition and order focusing me. Deep breaths. I know how to do this. I know what this means.

  I find my name and draw my index finger along the notes. Inventory duty today. With clipboard in hand, I head across the hall to the supply room. It’s blissfully empty and quiet. The chemicals, solutions, lab ware, all twinkle at me from the organized shelves. Working my way down the row, notating what needs to be reordered, my heart returns to beating regularly and my vision remains singular and clear. Low on twelve-millimeter pipettes. Need more pH paper. No more stirring bars. I lift up a bottle of hydrochloric acid. Barely any there. I record all this in neat, precise letters.

  As I search behind a group of half-gallon jugs, checking to see how much more I need to reorder, Dr. Mendelson’s voice jumps into my mind. I replay her words. Did she really ask me to join her lab? The shadowy remnants of our conversation steal out of reach. The betrayal of my mind angers me, and a prickling along the skin of my scalp spreads to the edges of my earlobes. I reach up and pinch the flesh. Focus, I repeat silently. Focus. It doesn’t matter. I can’t let myself return to what I cannot know. I know how to take inventory. The work tames my mind.

  I jot down the number four next to the hydrochloric acid on my list and check the reorder box. I walk down another row. Low on isopropyl alcohol. Barely any blue pH-10 buffer solution. The prickling returns, but this time it runs from my lobe all the way down the nape of my neck. Maybe I’m having an allergic reaction to the animals I was with earlier. I itch the back of my neck and return to the list.

  “Death doesn’t have to be the only answer,” Will says.

  Walking forward along the row, I check the bottles of nitric acid. Plenty.

  “What is faith but blind hope?” Dr. Mendelson asks.

  The prickling spreads down my shoulders. I focus on my steps, nice and easy, one foot in front of the other. Check the list. Sulfuric acid. Fine.

  A distant faint grating of metal on metal. Just a cart passing in the hall, I reason with myself.

  Potassium cyanide.

  Unless . . .

  I jump.

  The burning sensation creeps down my back, and I set down the clipboard on the shelf. My entire body is aflame, and I claw at my shoulders and the sides of my head. My ears begin to pound with the noise of grinding iron.

  It was her choice.

  Take it.

  It’s right in front of you.

  Take it.

  I reach forward and take the potassium cyanide bottle. The silence descends so abruptly that I turn around in shock. When you live with noise all the time, the quiet can be disturbing. I grip the bottle tightly and shove it into my jeans pocket. Whipping off my lab coat and balling it up, I rush out the inventory room and into the interns’ assignment room. I grab my backpack off the hooks and shove my lab coat on a shelf. I head to the elevators. Another intern rounds the corner and I wave.

  “Can you tell Dr. Diaz I went for my dinner break?” I call. The elevator doors open and I step inside without hearing the answer. The doors close behind me.

  The prickling is completely gone by the time I walk through the lobby and push open the glass doors to leave Genentium. Outside, it has become night. For once, I feel a warmth in the air. The lights from the diner beckon me and I remember the night I had to read Stephanie’s name tag as though meeting her for the first time. I close my eyes on the memory. Dad and I had practically lived at the diner; Stephanie like a wife and mother, laughing at all our stupid lab jokes.

  What do chemists use to make guacamole?

  Avogadros.

  I grip the bottle in my pocket, the grooved ridges of the top filling me with immeasurable relief, and a weightlessness buoys my body. The train cannot reach me now. The rumble of cars passing along the streets, the faint buzz of tungsten streetlamps, the voices of a couple talking as they walk by me, I can hear all of it. The world opens before my eyes. A ravenous hunger descends along with a feeling of joy with each pang. I know exactly who I am.

  I push open the door to the diner and spot Stephanie at the far end of the counter. I wave to her and take my usual seat by the cash register.

  “Hey, sweetheart.” Stephanie walks over. “It’s good to see you back.”

  “Hey, Steph. I’m sorry about the other night. I must have given you a scare.”

  Stephanie leans her elbows on the counter and hunches toward me. She whispers, “Gracie, I have never seen you look that way. Even right after your daddy died, you still had that spirit inside you. But the other night, I thought I was seeing your lost ghost walk in.”

  “I’m better,” I say.

  Stephanie leans in closer and meets my eyes. “I can see that.” She straightens up and winks. “Will seems like a nice guy.”

  Immediately, a blush blooms on my cheeks and I wish I had my summer tan to hide my reaction. Stephanie grins, seeing my reaction.

  “You want your usual?”

  I nod.

  Stephanie pushes open the swinging door to the kitchen and steps inside. A cloud of steam rises up from a pot on the stove. The soft white billow shifts and moves like a phantom before the door swings closed. I reach down into the pocket of my jeans and grip the bottle for relief. I grab a nearby newspaper and quickly scan the headlines to keep my mind preoccupied.

  Stephanie returns after a few minutes and slides a plate loaded with mashed potatoes and meat loaf in front of me before moving over to a group ready to order. I sit up straighter on my stool and breathe in deeply the familiar aromas. It’s been a long time since I’ve had real food. I cut into the tender meat with my fork and place it in my mouth. As I chew, a wave of nausea makes it hard to swallow. It must be from eating all the canned food. My body probably can’t tolerate anything else. I grip the side of my plate and try a scoop of mashed potatoes. My stomach heaves. I stand up quickly and rush to the bathroom. After splashing water on my face, I stare at my clammy reflection in the mirror and will myself to keep it together. My mouth pools with saliva, and I clench my jaw hard against the rising bile, but it’s too late. I turn around and vomit.

  Summer

  The sudden lurch of your stomach as though you have jumped from a cliff will awaken you. Your breath quickens as you sit up from your dreams, which will follow you into your waking world, the shrieks, the moaning and keening like a torture chamber of suffering. You will gaze around your room, knuckles to teeth, searching for the source, somebody in great pain.

  The air will thicken with the reverberations. Every molecule ripe with anguish. You will feel as though your ears are bleeding from the cries, your throat scraped raw from the screams, your skin ripped open from the clawing.

  You will crawl to the floor and hide under the bed, curling into a ball, your hands covering your ears, rocking back and forth, keeping time as you wait for the wails to stop.

  The sound of pounding feet and the door being flung open will alarm you. Strong hands gri
pping your arms and dragging you out from underneath the bed. You will scream and flail, trying to escape their brutality as you bite and hit until they strap your wrists to the bed rails and cover your body with a net that presses you back firmly into the mattress like a swaddled baby. You will feel the sharp press of the needle piercing your skin.

  Slowly, the familiar siren song of sleep will arrive. Their voices surrounding you as you sink back into yourself, back to the empty basement of dreams where a mother weeps for her child. You will close your eyes, wondering who they are.

  Spring

  A voice wakes me from my stupor on the floor next to the toilet.

  “Grace.” The knocking comes again. “Grace, are you okay?”

  I will myself off the floor of the bathroom and stagger over to the sink to rinse out my mouth. “Be right out.”

  I examine myself in the mirror. Who will I become? I feel as though I am rotting from the inside out. A shell of a human being, the decay unperceivable until touched, and then I will disintegrate right on the spot.

  Placing my palm over the reflection of my face, I suddenly long for my father. I desperately want the life he promised me when I was still that little girl and believed everything he said. I want oceans and pizza and playgrounds and snow and ice cream. You will live and die each day only to be reborn to repeat the cycle all over again. You will—

  I smash my fist into the mirror. A spiderweb of splintered glass erupts.

  The doorknob jiggles wildly. “GRACE! Come out right now or I’m gonna break down this door!”

  I open the door.

  Stephanie’s face, marbled with worry, meets mine.

  “I’m okay.”

  Stephanie steps back and then checks me over from head to toe, studying my body and face for clues.

  “I’m sorry about the mirror. I’ll pay for it,” I say, and try to move past her.

  She grabs my arms. “You scared the shit out of me. What is going on, Grace?”

  “Nothing,” I say.

  “Smashing a mirror is not nothing,” Stephanie insists.

  “I’m going to be late for work. Just leave it, okay? I’m fine, Stephanie.” Irritation husks my voice.

  Stephanie squints at me, steps back, and gives me a thorough exam. She licks her lips as though she is about to lay into me, but instead she sighs and turns. “I’ll pack your dinner to go.”

  I glance back at the broken mirror and then follow her to the counter.

  Stephanie quickly boxes up my cold, untouched dinner and puts it in a bag. She holds it out and I reach over to take it from her.

  “You have to eat all of it, you hear me?” Stephanie says.

  I nod, but I can’t meet her eyes.

  “Gracie,” she says, and waits for me to look up. “You know I am here for you, honey. If you need someone to talk to, I can help you with that. You can’t do this by yourself. You are not alone. Please, let me help you through this.”

  I see the concern in her eyes and remember all those dinners when she would laugh with me and Dad. Shaking her head at his bad jokes. Without thinking, I reach out and grip her forearm. “Thank you for everything, Stephanie. You’ve been a real friend, and I am never going to forget that.”

  Stephanie squirms for a second in embarrassment. “Yeah, well, just don’t forget to come pay your tab plus one broken mirror at the end of the month.”

  I refuse to make empty promises, so I smile instead.

  She pours a new hot coffee into a paper cup and seals on the lid before handing it over to me.

  I hoist my backpack onto one shoulder and with coffee and dinner in hand, I turn slightly to push open the door with my shoulder. Behind me the diner is warm with heat and food, chatter and clanking dishes. Stephanie stands in her place, watching me, then waves before turning to another customer, pulling out her pen and pad. My heart aches when I think about Stephanie finding out what will happen to me. But these are things I cannot control, and Stephanie’s pain is another drop in a pool teeming with heartache.

  • • •

  Outside, I stare up at the Genentium sign but head toward my car. I cannot wait any longer. I had thought having made my choice would have kept the train at bay for a little longer, but after the incident in the bathroom, I know I have to act now.

  Across the street, Will stands and waves his arms high in the air as though flagging down an ambulance. When I don’t cross over to him but keep heading down the sidewalk toward the parking lot, he dashes across the street.

  “Hey, didn’t you see me?”

  “How could I miss you?” I ask. “I’m not feeling so hot, so I’m just gonna head home.”

  “No, you can’t!” Will says, and reaches for my elbow, making the coffee slosh out of the small hole in the container and burning my hand.

  “Oww, Jesus!”

  “No, it’s Will.” He points to himself.

  “Oh my God, you are maddening,” I say, but can’t help smiling. I continue walking toward the parking lot. Will keeps in step next to me.

  “Are you following me?”

  “Yes, I am,” Will says, as though it is the most normal thing in the world.

  “I told you I’m going home.” The annoyance makes my voice high.

  “But I want to show you something.”

  “Now?” I show him my box of dinner. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

  “Come on. You can leave that in your car. It’ll take one second, and you are going to be blown away. I promise.”

  I consider the bottle in my lab coat. The weight of it pulling gently on the pocket. The insurance makes me bold with my time. I still have tonight. “Okay.”

  He smiles broadly and jabs his thumb to the right. We walk quickly to my car and I dump my already cold dinner and coffee on my seat with my backpack. Will touches my elbows and hurries ahead of me, waving at me to hurry too. We practically run past the lab toward a part of the city I have never explored. After a few blocks I feel my blood warming from our fast pace.

  “So you’re not going to tell me the surprise?”

  “Nope.”

  “Not even a hint?”

  “Nope.”

  “God, what kind of scientist are you? At least tease me with a formula.”

  Will starts laughing. “You are such a nerd.”

  “Hey, don’t blame me. Dad created an actual formula for perfect cheese on toast when I got mad at him one too many times for forgetting to pick up the pizza. I have the equation up on the fridge.”

  “Actually, he showed me that formula. It was ingenious. The bread-to-cheese ratio divided by time. He even had the width of the toast slice down to the millimeter.”

  “See what I had to deal with all that time?”

  Will turns to look at me, and the glow of the sunset brushes his face. He is summer gold, warmth and light. I halt midstep in surprise. I know Will. The feeling of familiarity like he has always been beside me, walking with me, talking with me, gazing at me. How long have I known him? Why can’t I remember? Nothing rational can explain the feeling that we have met before.

  Will takes my hand as we cross another street, and he gently pulls me across an abandoned parking lot pockmarked and claimed by weeds. A chain-link fence at the far end stops our journey.

  “Damn, I thought we would be able to get past these buildings,” Will says.

  “This is what you wanted to show me?” I ask, looking around.

  “No, look between the two buildings,” Will instructs.

  I gaze out and see the edge of the river and the lowering sun reflecting off the water. The view is so narrow it’s hard to say that it’s beautiful. I don’t want to disappoint Will, so I continue to just stare out at the water as though it is something magnificent to behold.

  A faint tremor livens the ground. I clutch the chain-link fence. The vibrations echo through the metal. The distant shriek of a whistle squirms into my ears. The train. I hear the train coming. I feel myself tense, ready to run. I can o
utrun it. I reach into my coat pocket and grip the bottle. I will not let it take me.

  I turn quickly on my heels.

  “Grace, please, just wait,” he says.

  The ground is shaking. The rhythmic clank of the wheels against iron tracks. The steady blare of the horn. I have to leave now. The train cannot take me. I know I will not come back this time.

  “Let me go, Will. I have to leave.”

  “But you’re going to miss it.”

  The low, haunting, rhythmic grind of metal against metal. The ringing bell and screaming whistle barrel into me. I hold my hands over my ears.

  Will points and I follow his hand, glimpsing between the buildings, blocking the view of the river, the moving train. I lower my hands and grip the fence, pressing my forehead to the cold wire.

  “It’s the five-ten freight train,” Will shouts into the noise.

  I automatically begin to count the cars the way I used to do when I was so young. The sound of the passing train, an external heartbeat clear and proud, lulls me just like before. The whistle blows and the crisp, deep timbre echoes through my body, a beacon of truth and dignity. The ghost of what I have been hearing and living with in my mind is nothing like the reality of the strength that reverberates out from the passing cars. A final whistle blow and the last car disappears from sight. I close my eyes, relishing the fading rumble. Then silence.

  Will cups the roundness of my shoulder. Light, but reassuring. I turn to him in gratefulness and surprise.

  “You said you heard a train, so I started asking around,” Will says, still gazing out between the buildings as though watching the phantom train. “I don’t know how you could have heard it from down below in the lab, but maybe you have some extrasensory auditory powers.”

  “All this time that I’ve been working at Genentium I’ve never heard it pass before,” I say. “I don’t understand how I could have missed it.”

  “If you were down in the lab every night around this time, you wouldn’t know it existed. There’s only one train every week or so. It’s an old track. Most of the trains use the newer one on the other side of the city.”