Maura liked to hide in small spaces.
Correction, Maura liked to be in small spaces.
As far back as she could remember it was something she instinctively went for. When her parents' social functions went on for too long, she would slip unnoticed under the table, into a world of tablecloth horizons and polished table legs that pushed into a sky of dark brown populated by her and the shoe creatures she shared the space with. She would put her hands over her ears and listen to the muffled rain of conversation and the occasional thunderous laughter.
Then, when the shoe creatures had all retired, and the sound of rain drifted away into the parlor for after dinner drinks and the catering crew were starting to clear the table, Maura doll in her little white dress, little white shoes, and little blue ribbons interlaced in the curls of her hair would climb out of the small world, into the big one. She would then climb up the big stairs, with the bannister she could barely reach, carefully put away her clothes and put on her pajamas and crawl into her big bed like her parents had no doubt assumed she had done hours ago, if they had bothered to think about her at all.
The last time she had done it she had been scolded by one of the catering crew as she crawled out from underneath the table. She remembered trying hard not to cry, not to make a scene, but she was small and alone, and they were big.
It was never mentioned but years later she realized that her anxiety of seeing that person at another function never materialized as that particular catering service was never used again by her parents or any of their acquaintances. She doesn't know if it had anything to do with her; she likes to believe it did.
It was time to stop anyway, it was no longer 'age appropriate behavior' as her mother said offhandedly as they prepared for another function.
Maura understood, so Maura had practiced sitting up straight. Maura had practiced not fidgeting. Maura had practiced smiling and making appropriate small talk to patronizing adults that decided to impress their dates by interacting with the only child in the room. Then, when everyone was going to the after dinner portion of the function Maura would politely excuse herself in the expected manner and go up the big staircase with the bannister at shoulder height. When she reached the landing she would look down because sometimes there were one or two men still at the bottom who looked away quickly when she turned.
Whoever these men were, they would never show up at another function. This too was never mentioned.
Maura would then go to bed and tremble for reasons she didn't understand.
It was the hope chest that saved her. She tries to think about it in other terms because she hadn't been in danger, there was no need to hide, no need to be saved. It was just that the world was so big and she was small and alone.
Antsy, her teachers had said to her nanny when she had been picked up that day. Antsy and distracted. Maura was disappointed when she got home and looked up the word in the dictionary. It felt… Maura opened a thesaurus, inadequate.
Maura even wondered if there was a word for how she was feeling.
She took the first volume of her set of encyclopedias from her bookshelf. They were an outdated edition but she would make do until she got to school. She had taken the books from outside of father's study when he had replaced his set. She had carried the heavy tomes one at a time to her room. If her father noticed, he never mentioned it. She didn't think he noticed.
Maura sat down on the rug and opened the page about ants. Then took down another book and looked up eusociality.
Focusing was hard, she found herself staring at the colorful image of ant morphology without absorbing anything.
She wan- she just wanted… she just wanted the world to be small again, just for a little bit. But her closet was too big, and her bed was too close to the ground, and her desk too open and and and…
And there was the hope chest. At the foot of the bed, added by some interior designer when Maura had graduated from a nursery to a bedroom. There were cushions on top but when Maura opened it, it was empty. There was a latch but no catch, no danger of some mischievous child getting trapped in a high stakes game of hide and seek. Not that there was any danger of that happening either way.
Maura stared into the chest, her mother's words about age appropriate behavior ringing in her ears. She was going to close it, she really was, but then it started raining. Heavy rain with deep booming thunder that drowned out her mother's voice.
It was everything. It was perfect. She reached down and took off her shoes, luxuriating in the sensation of stockings on sanded unpolished wood.
It was dark, and it was quiet, and she was still small, but so was the world now and she could breathe and breathe and breathe.
The buzzing static in her head cleared.
And breathe and breathe and breathe.
Her body relaxed and it almost felt like falling out of bed.
And breathe and breathe and breathe.
When she was packing for boarding school she asked her mother if should take the chest with her. Her mother had assured her that there was plenty of storage at the school.
After she left for France, her parents had moved. Maura had no idea what happened to the chest, and didn't even know how to begin to ask.
And Maura grew up and pretended to forget, pretended all her pieces fit together, and learned to see the world in articles, like the encyclopedias of her childhood. Manageable pieces of an overwhelming whole. She felt she was even getting away with it.
The world never got smaller, but she got bigger, is what she tried to convince herself.
Until Garrett. Garrett, who had tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled. Garrett, who showed her off to his friends proudly. Garrett, who held her naked body close to his in physical ecstasy and stayed when it was over.
Garrett, who made her increasingly uncomfortable as their relationship progressed. When Maura stopped to think about it one day a word from her childhood popped up. Antsy, being with Garrett, was making her antsy.
So she left.
She was still surprised when he turned out to be a murderer.
Older, wiser, a doctor, less inhibited. Her vocabulary increased to include things like 'overstimulation', 'coping strategies', and 'claustrophilia'.
She custom ordered a chest. She experimented with cardboard boxes to get the dimensions right, added passive ventilation that didn't let in the light, made one of the sides thinner so she could break out in an emergency, and after careful consideration included a latch that could be enabled or disabled as needed.
She didn't expect she would ever trust anyone enough to lock her into her small world, or that anyone would ever want to, but she clung to an irrational hope of an event of low probability.
It wasn't everything, it wasn't perfect, but it was better than anything else and that was good enough for Maura. She put cushions on the bottom and covered them with a blanket. And it was dark and soft and quiet.
And breathe, and breathe, and brea-"MAURA!"
Maura smiled, her real smile, her Jane smile. Jane made the world manageable too, in a loud, bright, chaotic way that Maura would never have imagined being able to tolerate, much less yearn for.
Hearing Jane moving around in the kitchen Maura felt safe enough to leave her small world, fix her hair in the mirror, and go find Jane.
She found Jane at the foot of the stairs, about to come look for her.
Jane smiled sheepishly, "Sorry, did I wake you?"
Maura shakes her head, still smiling. "Just resting."
Jane only finds out because they are both exhausted. A somewhat busy week turned hectic as more and more people called in sick with the flu.
They are spared because Maura gives a performatively reluctant Jane a flu shot every year. Afterwards Jane would demand a completely unnecessary band aid, Maura had a box of ones with colorful cartoon characters on it that she kept only for Jane. Maura likes taking care of Jane, she thinks Jane might like it too.
With barely any time to eat or sleep and no time to spare to relax, the static begins to build up, Maura gets antsy. Towards the end of the week as people begin to stumble back into the office in a post-flu daze, Jane and Maura are told to go home and not return for two days.
Maura skips dinner in favor of a shower then looks at the bed in despair. She feels so tired but the world feels too big, and she feels so small, and the tremors…
She can't even pretend she didn't mean to fall asleep in the chest. She'd get hives.
It's Jane's panicked cry of her name that wakes her up. She's not sure she's fully conscious before she opens the lid and stands up, because nothing, nothing is more important than getting that distressed sound soothed.
And Jane was there. Jane was staring. Whispers of 'age appropriate' sounding like her mother in her mind. Maura felt her face flushing and she looked away, ashamed, and angry at herself for being ashamed.
"You didn't answer." Jane said, holding up Maura's phone.
"Oh," An acknowledgement rather than an apology.
Jane puts the phone down and closes the distance between herself and the chest in three steps of her long legs. Maura wondered when Detective Rizzoli had entered the room, but here she was.
Secure the area.
Check for injuries. Maura knew Jane was looking at her exposed skin, looking for abrasions and bruising, looking at her clothing for reddish brown stains. There were none, no one had forced Maura into this particular box.
Examine the crime scene. Maura stood still, looking away from Jane as she took a look inside the chest. Maura mentally cataloged what she knew Jane would find. Cushions, a blanket, some sensory objects that Maura used when better than anything else still wasn't enough. For the first time Maura realized how much her small world embarrassingly resembled a baby bed.
It was the next step that Maura was dreading.
Interrogate the suspect, and Jane knew she couldn't lie.
"Is this where you were last night?" A nod. "Because you wanted to be?" Another nod. A slight hesitation before the next question is almost whispered. "Because it makes you feel good?"
Maura would have laughed if she felt like she had air. Only Jane could reduce a lifetime of questioning, double-thinking, self-shaming and attempts to unlearn the feelings of shame into one easily answerable question. Maura wants to explain, wants to tell Jane about the tablecloth horizons and encyclopedias and thunderstorms and ants, but that's not what Jane asked.
"Yes." Is the only true answer anyway.
Jane lets out a breath Maura hadn't realized she was holding. "OK then," was not the response Maura had expected.
The speed in which Maura looked up into Jane's face almost made her dizzy, certainly the look of relief did.
"Are you ready to come out?" Such a gentle question, barely even an inquiry, more of an invitation than anything. Oh, Maura realized, Jane was back.
When Maura nodded, Jane took her hands and held them as Maura stepped out of the chest. There was a moment of silence and stillness, a beat between seconds that somehow stretched out.
Jane squeezed her hands and time came crashing back.
Maura learns what it means for Jane to know on a day where she felt that the world must be huge to hold that much cruelty. Her work was impeccable as always but her toes wouldn't stop wiggling in her shoes as she typed up the report.
Maura skips dinner in favor of a shower, but when she comes out Jane is there, and Jane is standing next to the chest holding the lid open and Maura wants to sob.
Jane takes her hand as she steps into her chest and watches with patient interest as Maura made herself comfortable. Jane crouches, brushes her hand over Maura's hair, gently kisses her temple with her thumb and smiles. Maura likes it when Jane takes care of her, she's pretty certain Jane likes it too.
"I'll be right here," she says as she closes the lid, as though it was obvious, as though there was never any question as to where else she might be.
And it is dark, and it is small, and it is a manageable amount of the world, and Jane is there, the memory of her touch-kiss a soothing reminder of her presence. She is seen, she is loved, she is safe.
And breathe and breathe and breathe.
It is everything and it is perfect and she is not ashamed.
And breathe and breathe and breathe.
And when her body lets go, it feels like falling in love.