The characters belong to Mr. Thomas Harris. I just borrowed them because I love them. All disclaimers apply.
Like
a Glove
Clarice Starling walked in the duplex feeling like a zombie, "maybe I am
dead," she thought, "maybe I am dead and this is hell."
Her clothes, covered with the blood of many, including her own; stunk of fish,
sweat, fear, gunpowder, blood and death.
She stripped and threw every garment in the washer just to realize the smell
was on her.
She felt betrayed, abandoned, alone; and the sorrow wrapped on her like a
shroud, but the tears eluded her…
The recollection of John Brighams death hit her like a tidalwave and rolled her
over and over, sickening her with grief, until she was further exhausted , her
eyes dry, her soul scorched…
Tired and emotionally worn she stepped under the shower and furiously scrubbed
herself in an effort to wash away the smell, the memories of the horror ; the
image of John Brigham wasted, immolated to the Gods of departmental
one-upmanship, political ambition, greed and public opinion.
The
blessed warmth on the water beating on her skin, soothed her aching body, as
she tried to get hold of her grief, to control the onslaught of her emotions,
to sort them comprehensibly in an attempt to regain control of herself.
One by one, she pushed away the painful memories.
The image of John Brigham dead…Evelda dead, the scraming baby strapped to his
mother's dead body... all the faces flashing thru her memory.
Her father, dead for nothing, like Brigham; her mother, scrubbing bathrooms,
working menial jobs fighting a losing battle to keep her family together...
Faces... the faces of all her life…While, intermittently intruding, the one
face she kept pushing away for fear to embrace it if she allowed herself to
dwell on it.
To embrace it against all reason, against all sanity and never let go of it.
The one face, of the one person who truly appreciated her, whose image of her
fit like a glove to the most complex confines of what she was, of who
she was…
"Who am I, anyway?" she asked herself briefly. "Why do I consistently
deny myself to dwell in the memory of the only person who really saw ME?
She pushed the though away, once again, as she usually did when it got too
close to home and clenched her teeth, concentrating on the effort to close her
mind to his memory.
She got off the shower.
She was on her robe, blotting her hair with a towel when the sound of the
doorbell finally penetrated her consciousness.
Slowly she made her way to the front door. Opened it just as the mailman was
turning to leave. Hurriedly took the envelope he offered and signed for it.
She looked at the envelope and knew…and felt a mixture of dread and glee,
relief and fear as she sat tiredly , put on her ever present cotton gloves,
slit the envelope and removed the single, handwritten sheet.
She had no doubt as to who had written to her.
Dear Clarice,
I have followed with enthusiasm the course of your disgrace and public shaming.
My own never bothered me, except for the inconvenience of being incarcerated …
The tears finally came...