r, a nightstand with a brass lamp on it, a rag rug. Stacks of papers and books and magazines and newspapers lined every wall, covered most surfaces. No mirror. No closet. Just a few men’s clothes hanging from hooks on the wall. It all had a very temporary look. Or maybe this was how men lived without women in their lives. “Where are we?” she asked, but she knew.
“I sleep here when I’m in town.” He paused.
“Interesting you don’t say you live here.”
“My life. It’s … more of an idea. A cause. Or it has been.”
“What do you mean?”
“For years, I’ve been fighting to make the rich pay their workers a living wage. I hate the inequity between the haves and the have-nots. I’ve been beaten and gone to prison for it. I’ve seen my comrades beaten, but tonight … when I saw you get hit…”
“What?”
“I thought … it’s not worth that.” He looked at her. “You’ve unbalanced me, Elsa.”
Elsa felt a sense of connection but didn’t know what to do with it, how to reach for him without humiliating herself. “I’m not myself around you, either,” was all she could think of to say.
He reached for her hand, held it.
The silence became awkward. He seemed to be waiting for her to say something, but what?
“There’s blood on your face and in your hair. Maybe you’d like to bathe before I take you back to your cabin. So the kids don’t see you like this.”
He helped her out of bed and steadied her as they walked into the small bathroom. Jack turned on the water in the porcelain bathtub, and then left her alone.
She undressed and stepped into the bath. With a sigh, she slid down into the hot water.
It relaxed her as nothing had in a long time. She washed her hair and body and felt rejuvenated.
But all the while, she was thinking of Jack.
Do you know how beautiful you are? She had never forgotten him saying those remarkable words, and now, he’d claimed to be unbalanced by her. Certainly, she was equally undone by him.
She stepped out of the tub and dried off, then wrapped the towel around her naked body and reached down for her ragged dress.
She stopped.
When she put that dress back on, she would be Elsa again.
She didn’t want that. At least she didn’t want to be the Elsa who stayed silent and accepted less and thought it her due. She’d rather reach for love and fail than never reach at all.
She turned the door handle slowly.
Even as she opened the door, she couldn’t quite believe she was doing this: she, who had ached for her husband’s touch for more than a dozen years but never once had the courage to reach for him, was going to walk out of this bathroom wearing only a towel.
It felt like the most courageous act of her life. She opened the door and walked into the bedroom.
Jack stood against the wall, arms crossed. When he saw her, he uncrossed his arms and walked toward her.
She dropped the towel, trying not to be ashamed of her scrawny body.
He stopped, then moved closer, said her name softly.
Elsa couldn’t believe the look in his eyes, but it was there. Desire. For her.
“Are you sure?” he asked, touching a lock of her hair, lifting it from her bare shoulder.
“I’m sure,” she said.