In need of mending

 There was a place from Madame Lous bedroom window that looked as though there was a garden outside. A maple reached a low hanging branch laden with red colored leaves across the view, hiding the slum behind it.  A partially fallen down fence showed only the part still standing from where Jackie lie in bed and birds perched on it and tweeted their songs for the whores and paupers just the same they would for kings.

A few months back, Jackie would have been excited to lie there and imagine herself someone of importance, waiting for breakfast in bed.  But today she shifted her weight, even though it was painful to move so she could see the dilapidated buildings and smokestacks in the the neighborhood behind the garden facade before her. 

She wanted to see things as they were and found she had the will to do otherwise less and less.

She wasn't someone of importance and it wasn't a garden and the breakfast was being brought to her was because she couldn't move for what had been done to her body yesterday in the brothell where she worked.

"Oh, sweetheart!" Sadie carried in a tray and placed it by the bedside.   "It's going to hurt terribly for a few days.  We'll have to keep these in you." She handed Jackie some aspirin and a glass of water. As she lifted her arm to drink, Sadie saw Jackie's elbows. They were black and her forearms were a deep purple.

"Do you think he'll come back?"

"That awful man? God no!  The boys beat him till he begged to be let go.  Lou told him it would happen again if she ever saw him, here or in town. No Jackie, he's not coming back."

"Not him..." After a long silence Jackie sighed, working up the courage to speak. "...James" She only breathed his names and her throat closed around her voice as it pushed out his precious name.  The mention of him made Jackie begin hyperventilate.

It was as it had become this way over the past year, the mention of his name, the sound of his voice made Jackie weak. When he was near, it was the most beautiful undressing sort of weakness, the kind where she could finally fall into him and and truly laugh or cry or love.  She would fall asleep with question he had asked her lingering in her thoughts. It was as if his tender thoughts became her own and she would cradle them into a slumber and awaken with a renewed sense of curiosity and each day.

  But when he was away, the mention of his name caused a seizing in her chest like she was holding everything in until it was safe again, and it wouldn't be until he was nearby.  He hadn't been nearby for sometime and now this? She wondered if he would care if he knew.  Would that be a sign of love?  In spite of all the restrictions around them; the things that she was not...the way that they could never be because of her. But at least if she knew he still cared.

"I don't know know my love."  Sadie sat in Jackie's sadness a moment and stroked her hair out of her eyes and held her hand.  Sadie spoke more quietly as Bridgette entered with a warm basin of water and cloths. "They come and go, those Johns.  Better not to favor one."

"You talking about funny James?  He's got a girlfriend now.  Don't expect we'll be seeing him, at least for a while, they all come back, don't they Sadie?

Jackie's eyes shot toward the window, seeking the respite of the garden view; the view of the thing that didn't exist or only existed if she look at it from a certain angle.

Sadie placed her hand warmly on Jackie's leg. "They do Jackie, they always come back." She knew this was not what Jackie wanted to hear and she could see Jackie's lip start to tremble.

"Besides, you were his favorite screw if I remember it right." Added Bridgette, meaning this to be of some sort of awful consolation.  Sadie threw Bridgette a look to tell she was greatly missing the mark of making things any better. Bridgette patted Jackie's back mechanically, trying harder. "There, there" 

Sadie pulled up the sheets from Jackie's feet in a smooth motion. The way Sadie moved was slow and warm. She wrung some fresh hot towels from the basin, wrapping them snugly in warm bundles around Jackie's feet which were the only thing that didn't hurt and Sadie knew it. She looked at Jackie as she massaged them and watched the frightfully vacant expression on her friends face.  

The girls had always criticized Madame Lou for being so hard and jaded.  She had once thrown a girl out on the streets after she told Lou that she was going to run away with a salesman who came through.  Lou had beat her to it and kicked her out.  When the salesmen realized that the girl really thought they were going to run away together and that he would be financially responsible to feed the girl, he left town. Sadie realized men said a certain thing between the sheets, and often believed it themselves.  But Lou knew that when the light of day came, when food and shelter were considered, when social standards ruled coupling practices, sweet talking men quickly changed their speeches from poetry to propriety.

And now Sadie could see why.  She had never wanted to pull Jackie from the bliss of whatever she was feeling with James and hated that Lou had been so cynical toward Jackie.  But now she understood why.  Inevitably, James would be free to pursue whatever he wanted and all along Lou had known that it would be Jackie that would be stuck straddling the stoop where she had found her love for him, wondering if he would ever return.  Here, at the end of the joy, was the pain.  A time of great sorrow for Jackie when she longed for his comfort, needed him there.  But this wasn't a luxury that belonged to women at the Bordeaux. Comfort, closeness came only at a cost and usually went one way...toward the client.  

Still there was something there between Jackie and James and Sadie hadn't seen it before. The time they had together changed them both in some way. Sometimes Sadie had been jealous.  Maybe a memory was just what Jackie needed right now.  Not to deny thinking of James, which was clearly impossible.