What was Lost

The day after the follow-up pest treatment, I remember that I went up the stairs, pulling my weight up by the carved and curving Victorian banister, to see, resting on the top floor skylight, a classic, Brooklyn-style 2 1/2”-long water bug. Quite dead, its legs were sprawled out in silhouette against the piece of Plexiglass that Steven had lain across the opening, to replace the original decrepit windowpane that had previously been there.  No doubt it was lying on its back, as they always seem to be . It was only a water bug, I was thinking; that I was now able to use that descriptor, “only” with something as gruesome as a two-and-a-half-inch water bug was an irony not lost on me. And true, it was dead, and there was only one of them. But it lay there, in unmistakable silhouette, at the very top of the house, at the uppermost visible portion, all in distinct silhouette, such that it seemed unmistakably like an entomological victory flag.

At this point the assumption was that it was I who had won – but even to this day I can't really be sure. And anyway, even if I can put it all in the past, when will I be able to put the past behind me? My whole life had changed. All of this was, in part, a story of loss of innocence. 

 

But loss of other things, too. I lost weight. I lost money. Trust. Sleep. Belongings. I lost hope – hope that the problem would ever end, hope that I'd live a life normal enough again to ever be able to invite anyone in. I spent money on things that to the untrained mind might seem utterly unrelated to the problem. Suddenly I had to have a purse large enough that I could put my sweater in it before setting either item down in anyone's house – and never on or near the bed; rather, always a little too suspiciously close to the closet, where perhaps, however, luggage was being stored – or, worse, bed linens. That bag needed to be not only large but made up, as well, of a sleek and seemingly impenetrable fabric. And it needed to zip completely and utterly closed, in case I needed to keep my very life inside.