Nails

J. Dana Stuster

These things happen every once in a while. He had seen stories on the news like this before. A man had been careless one way or another and had wound up with a nail or a knife blade wedged two inches into his brain. There was always the requisite x-ray in gruesome grayscale, the purity of the white, like a blank sheet of paper, like the lightest powder of snow, like nothing, indicating the object that was very much something, something solid and that should not be there. The newswoman was saying how the doctors could not move the nail, as it was a nail this time, clumsily misfired from a nail gun on a construction site, because any motion could cause irreversible brain damage. It was, of course, a miracle he could function at all, let alone this, that he seemed completely unaffected. The only option, the doctors had decided, was to clip off the head of the nail and, with epoxy and braces, affix the nail where it was, so that it could not move.
Jeff considered for a moment what it would be like to carry something solid, something irreducible, immutable, like those two inches of tarnished steel between the tender folds of his brain. Would he be able to feel it, would he feel the slightest shift against it if he turned his head? He decided he would. He imagined it being cold, always cold, twenty years from now, still cold and coarse. He decided he knew exactly how it felt. Jeff felt he had been carrying the nail in his skull, solid and grating against every thought, for eight years. Eight years, he thought, yes, that’s how long I’ve loved Danielle.
He could tell you durations like that. Eight years since the moment he knew, three years and seven months since she married Charles, two months, three weeks, and four days since he last saw her. The occasion had been her birthday, and Jeff seized any pretense to see her. The pretense was necessary with Charles in her life. Charles had come on her as a snare on a rabbit, snatching her away with the speed and grace of reflex. He slid over her life like a glove, warm, insulating, and protective, but, Jeff imagined, like a hand in a glove, she was somehow aloof, removed from the immediacy of sensation. Would she feel the same thrill if his hand passed over hers, he wondered, the way anyone would? Certainly, probably more than most after being so distant for so long, but that wasn’t it. She had lived with the boundaries for long enough that they had been imprinted in her mind, remembered in every action. He would never touch her hand, intentionally or accidentally; she would always be cognizant of where he was, the vectors of his swaying arms, she would calculate the ways to avoid him in advance. She would always be out of reach, in the most physical sense.
The phone in his pocket was ringing and he knew it was her before he looked at it. The display said “Danielle,” which surprised him for a moment, that Charles hadn’t deleted his number again, that she didn’t have a new number, one his phone wouldn’t recognize. He stared at it in his hand an additional moment so as not to seem too eager, as though this was all somehow premeditated.
“Hello?” He never answered with a person’s name. That implied a certain presentiment that made him uncomfortable. He liked the familiarity of the ritual, the names. He liked hearing what her voice did to his name.
“Jeff, I need to see you.”
“Sure, when would you like?” He measured his breaths, forced himself to say it slowly, with calculated disinterest.
“Could you come, now?”
Yes, was his reflexive answer. She always made his mind skitter over words to simple affirmations. Yes, he would say to anything she asked. Yes, yes, yes, but he was pacing himself.
“Now?”
“Please, Jeff.”
“Alright, just give me a moment to change, I just got in from work.”
He could hear her breathing on the line.
“Do you have to?” she asked.
“I’m still in my suit. I look ridiculous.” He tried to imagine her smile. “Give me thirty minutes.”
“Alright,” she said.

They agreed to meet at a coffee shop buried in one of the more faded alleys of the town. The room looked as it smelled, all earth tones and shadows dampened only by what sunlight struggled through the mosaic of painted windows. He had to glance around the room several times, first to accustom himself to the darkness, then to try to find her. She had tucked herself into a corner alongside the glass. The light crept in through the brown tempera and cut glass windows like a tabby thing in mottled hues, settling on the tiny table in front of her and dappling her face. With the large sunglasses over her eyes, he almost did not recognize her.
“What is it that was so urgent?” He feigned exasperation as he strode over.
“Not so loud,” she shushed him. Her eyes darted towards the counter and back like a nervous bird. “Maybe I shouldn’t say. This was a mistake.”
“No, what is it?”
“I know what you think about Charles.”
“I’ve never hidden my opinion of him.”
“You’re probably not the best person to talk to about this, it’s just – I didn’t know who else to call.”
“What is it?”
“He hit me.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know! I don’t even know,” her voice was turning brittle and a tear slipped from under the big, dark glasses. “I came home from work and he was home, he gets home before me sometimes, and there was this big, beautiful bouquet of roses on the dining table and him just sitting there next to them. And I said to him, ‘They’re beautiful! You never get me flowers!’ and he didn’t even look at me. And then he says, he says, ‘No, I never get you flowers.’ Then he stands up and starts yelling. Just starts yelling at me, shouting, ‘Who? Who is he? Who sent you these?’ I don’t know, I tried to tell him. ‘I don’t know,’ I said, but he kept yelling. He had them in his hand, the flowers in his hand and he was holding them so tight that the thorns, the thorns were cutting into him but he didn’t even notice, he just kept yelling, yelling so loud that I can’t get it out of my head. Damn it, I still hear him yelling! He walked across the room, shouting, ‘Who?’ until it wasn’t even a question anymore, he was just yelling ‘Who! Who!’ I tried to walk away, but he wouldn’t let me, he grabbed me, and then he hit me. He took the flowers and he hit me, he smashed them into my face. And he just kept yelling. ‘How do you like the flowers now? Are the flowers beautiful now?’ he said. And they were. They were so beautiful, even when I could feel the stems breaking and cutting, the thorns cutting me, everything I could see was red with the tears and the blood and the petals, and the petals, the petals were all so soft, and it was all so beautiful, but I don’t know who, and I tried to tell him, but he wouldn’t listen. ‘Don’t lie to me!’ he yelled and then he stormed out, to the bar, I think.”
She stopped and began to catch her breath; somewhere in the course of things she had stopped talking to Jeff, and was instead just talking, not to anyone, maybe not even aware that she was talking at all. The tears were washing the definition from her makeup, showing the raised ridges of fresh cuts. In the dim light he could see the shadows where the blood had begun to scab. She took off her glasses for a moment to wipe her cheeks and he saw her face, dewy and doe-eyed, perforated by the tiny scratches around her eyes.
“Jeff, I don’t know what to do.”
“Danielle, I’m so sorry.” He put his hand on hers and she did not flinch away.
“I don’t think I can be there when he gets back.”
“Do you have someplace you can stay?”
“I’ll find a hotel room.”
“You could always come back to my-”
“No.”
Jeff observed the way a mote of dust was caught in the light from a lighter panel of glass, yellow or a faded brown, he couldn’t tell. He followed it from the glass to where it settled on his hand holding hers and her hand was only stained by the glow cast by the diamond there.
“Why did you ask me to come here?” he asked.
“How do I make this work?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know that you can. I don’t know if you ever could.”
“No.”
“Danielle, you know I don’t think well of him.”
“No, this can work.”
“Look at what he did to you. He’s an animal, some sort of predator. He’s never been good for you. You need to get out.”
“No! This can work, I can fix this. Don’t,” she dared him. “Don’t say another word.”
“You knew this is exactly what I would say. You knew that.”
She studied the panels of glass where they joined each other. Followed the lead solder with her gaze, pretending to be intent on anything but him.
“Danielle, why did you really call me here?”
“This was a mistake.”
“You know I still think about you. That I carry you in my mind, always. That I feel you whenever I turn my head too suddenly.”
“This was a mistake. I need to go.”
She stood suddenly, but he gripped her hand and held her there for a moment longer.
“Know that, if you ever need anything, ever – I’ll be here for you.” He squeezed her hand and let it go. “Be careful.”
Her face eased for a moment to smile softly at him, and then, wiping her cheeks, she walked out the door. Jeff went to the counter and ordered another coffee.

Jeff sat in his apartment that evening under an open window with the lights off. He let the cool air tickle his skin until it rose in goosebumps while he thought about how easily the pieces of life would fall away and reassemble. She would leave Charles, he had no doubt of that; she never should have been with him from the beginning. She would run to him and he would take her up and be good to her, be the man she had always needed, the man she always deserved. And when he kissed her, eight years would mean nothing, and it would always feel like he had just fallen in love with her. There is a beautiful choreography to the undoing of things. The way people collide and ricochet and collide again; all of fate is violence. He scratched his head and imagined he could feel something tangible shift deeper into his mind.
The clipping from the yellow pages was still on the counter, where he had left it two days ago. In the morning he would dial the same number from the page of florists and order another bouquet of blood red roses to his same credit card, to be sent anonymously. The thought of it made him smile and he could not stop himself. He did not even try. He closed his eyes in anticipation of the next day, which could not come soon enough.