Then at Dorothy Lane she’s a maniac. In my car she wears two pairs of sunglasses—one on top of the other. She’s bracing the dashboard like we’re about to crash—when we’re perfectly fine. She wants to stay in the car while I shop but there’s no way I’m letting that happen.
I sit her on this bench next to the bakery and I get one of those small baskets.
"Are you gonna be ok?"
But she looks terrible. She doesn’t look like she’s gonna be ok. She’s shivering, grabbing bits of newspaper from this stack of Wall Street Journals, and she’s putting them on her legs.
I set the basket at her feet and sit down next to her. I’m taking the Wall Street Journals and stacking them, not back in their pile but on the bench with us, in our laps. Then Jules goes limp and I’m just holding her. She’s staring at a stack of Lärabars. People are watching us as they enter the grocery store. I don’t care what they think. I’m past wanting to kill anyone who looks at us strange—I just want to take care of my Jules. I have my arms around her. I hold her head so it doesn’t fall. Her fingers are scraping my leg—softly—brushing her fingernails back and forth along my leg, back and forth.. I’m rocking her, gently. That’s something that seems to work in these situations. Just rock her and wait till it passes.
Some guy from the store comes by and starts stacking the Wall Street Journals. He starts to ask me if everything’s ok—and he sort of mouths the words. But I tell him—quietly, and mostly with expressions and eyes—that she’s fine..we just need to sit here a minute. He stacks the newspapers but he doesn’t make us move, and no one else comes to bother us.