Underneath the Pear Tree

“Are you still visiting your special place on Tuesdays?” Sandy asked, pushing her glasses down the bridge of her nose. Sandy wore rose gold rimmed glasses connected to a pearl chain, and spent the entire appointment moving them from her nose to around her neck, then back again.

Tilda nodded and wrapped her cardigan around her chest. The air conditioning above her was blowing a gale but Sandy didn’t appear to notice. Tilda massaged her bony wrist and suspected nobody felt the cold quite like she could.

“Are you eating more?” Sandy asked, as if reading Tilda’s mind. She was glancing at the notes in front of her as if they held the answers to Tilda’s problems. Perhaps they did.

“Yes,” Tilda lied.

“Last week, you mentioned you were having urges to look him up online. Have you been able to avoid that this past week?”

Tilda nodded. The truth this time. It was just about the only thing she’d managed to achieve the past week.

Sandy removed her glasses and let them fall around her neck, her peach coloured silk blouse billowing slightly in the breeze from the air conditioning.

“You’re doing great, you know Tilda. Truly.”

Tilda nodded and looked out the window, so she didn’t have to see the kindness in Sandy’s eyes. She was determined to get through one session without shedding her body weight in tears.

“I thought … Once he was out of my life, I would feel myself again. How I felt before I met him,” Tilda said, fixing her gaze on a pair of spotted doves perched on the fence outside Sandy’s office.

“Recovery isn’t linear. There’s no magic pill. Only progress.”

* * * *

Tilda took the long way home. She changed her route home regularly, in case she was being followed. When she stepped inside her house, she checked the locks on the door repeatedly. Then she checked the seals of the windows, pressing her nose against the glass and inspecting for cracks or signs of damage. His voice whispered in her ear. “I’ll find you. I always do.” She did her best to ignore it.

Tilda opened the freezer and took out a frozen lasagne, then placed it into the microwave. She took it out after five minutes, steam rising from the holes in the plastic pocket.

She could only manage a handful of bites before the nausea took over and she had to throw the meal away, finding herself repulsed at the wetness of the meat, the thickness of the cheese and the snot-like consistency they created when mixed together.

Tilda went upstairs and changed into her robe. She didn’t undress in front of mirrors. She knew her body was sharp with brittle edges and lacking softness. She knew her hip bones stuck out like boulders. And while she knew eating more would solve this problem, whenever it was time to eat she remembered the day he forced her to consume the entire clambake she’d undercooked by mistake … and how sick she’d been in the days following. The taste of seafood would inevitably begin its way up her esophagus from her stomach, as if the clambake had permanently imprinted itself in her stomach lining, and she’d be unable to even think about food for the rest of the day.

She opened the pantry and grabbed an unopened bottle of red wine, then splashed the burgundy liquid into a wine glass. His voice in her head appeared, on schedule. “Don’t embarrass yourself, woman. You’re a drunk.”

She sipped the wine standing in her kitchen, hoping its effects would be instant. The night after therapy was always the hardest of the week, she knew it got better. She moved to her couch and picked up the remote, then switched on the television. A movie starring Ryan Gosling was playing on free to air. She quickly switched it off, but it was too late. She knew the part of him that still lived inside her had seen it.

“You want to screw him, don’t you Tilda?” the voice in her head screamed. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply in and out. Then, she laughed, despite herself. She held her hand to her mouth, surprised. It was all just so trivial. So stupid. She’d mentioned to him in passing that she found Ryan Gosling attractive, and he had obsessed over it and used it against her all those months later. Whenever they had watched a movie together of his choosing, she’d pray Ryan Gosling wasn’t in it.

There was no handbook for things that would set him off. Tilda, who had always prided herself at a young age on being able to solve puzzles and piece together jigsaws, had never been able to master that.

When Tilda eventually climbed into bed that night, her bones throbbed with the weight of the day. She pulled up the sleeves of her nightgown and inspected her bare arms, a ritual she’d never rid herself of. Her skin was clear, her veins the only hints of purple she could find. She lay in bed, her eyes wide, and knew another sleepless night was ahead of her but that in the small hours of the morning she’d find release and with that, she took comfort.

* * * *

Tilda awoke at 6am as the sun sprinkled in through the tops of her curtains and softly radiated a rainbow across her bedspread. She stretched until her back cracked. She had made it to Tuesday.

She set off soon after 8. She took the quickest route to the art gallery instead of trying to find a newer, longer one. As she approached the counter the man selling tickets recognised her.

He printed her a ticket but when she tried to pay, he gently pushed her hand away and gave her a wink. Tilda made her way to the second floor and walked until she arrived where she needed to be.

She sat on the red couch opposite the painting, crossing one foot in front of the other. She was completely alone on the entire floor, just how she liked it.

She stared up at the large painting in front of her. It was oil on canvas with a thick rimmed gold frame. The painting was of a young girl, asleep underneath a tall pear tree which draped over her, as if protecting her from the world. Tilda just loved the way the artist contrasted the chartreuse colour of the pears with the bright yellow dandelions in the garden. And how the girl’s cornflower blue sundress was the same colour as the cloudless sky. But mostly, she loved how safe the girl looked, shadowed by the tree.

As she sat in front of the painting, his voice grew faint. Tilda closed her eyes and smiled, imagining herself there, underneath the pear tree.