I am a child of luxury. I learned that on a day I was feeling particularly sorry for myself, having picked up another sackful of medicine for my omnipresent depression which has proven especially difficult for my $150 an hour psychiatrist to treat.
I pulled up to my favorite sushi place just before it started to snow. It was one of the coldest nights of the year, and to a South unaccustomed to temperatures in the teens, the winter storm had hit everyone hard.
I saw her as soon as I pulled up. A young woman in a shabby parka sitting on the sidewalk with a pull cart of belongings behind her. We locked eyes immediately.
I got out of my car and made my way inside. I spoke to her as I passed by, and she asked me if I had any spare change. The thing is, I almost never carry cash or coins, but I had three dollars that night, an I gave it to her. I told her those dollars were special because my nephew had given them to me in my birthday card. She looked at me, listening, with piercing brown eyes. She thanked me, and I went inside.
I sat at the bar and it all felt wrong. I was warm and comfortable and about to eat and she wasn’t any of those things, and maybe one turn in the road at one point in my life and I could be sitting on a milk crate outside a sushi restaurant and she could be in here. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I walked to the window, looking out to see if she was still there. Servers asked if I was alright. I was restless, stalking. I ordered two spring rolls to go and dashed into the cold with them.
She was sitting at the edge of the sidewalk, where the snow encroached upon the covered space. Her hands were shoved in her pockets, and her breath puffed. I realized too late that I hadn’t thought this through, that I was flying blind, that this human act was the most organic thing I’d ever done, so I just decided to wing it.
I stood by her a little outside the covering, and snow began to collect in my hair. “I hope you don’t mind if I join you,” I said a little haltingly.
She gave me a prim smile. “No, not at all.”
I took out the piping hot spring rolls. “I have these, and I thought you might like to share them with me.” I looked up at her. “Sometimes I don’t like to eat alone.”
It was the biggest load of bullshit I’d ever said. I love to eat alone. I’m so antisocial I make the unabomber look like the president of the PTA. But it came out and it sounded good and I almost believed it.
She smiled. “No that’s sweet of you but it’s too cold to eat.” She gestured inside her jacket. “My hands are already warm.”
Oh, I thought. If she pulls them out they’ll get cold again, and there’s no nice warm car or shelter or restaurant to go warm them back up again. I shrank a little and took a bite of the spring roll. Indeed, my fingers were starting to bite against the cold.
I simply stood by her for awhile in awkward silence, two people coexisting. I asked her her name. “Nod, she answered.” I told her that was striking and beautiful. She eventually told me she was from New York City, but was not sure if she would go back if she had the chance. I wanted to know why, but did not show it. She had family there, she said. I wanted to know them, too. I wanted to read the history in her face…to know the story in her eyes.
I did not talk about myself. I was not important. Nod was important. Nod was interesting. I wanted to stay longer. I wanted to hear more.
“Do you have a place to stay for the night?” I found myself asking.
“I might go to the hotel over there,” she said, pointing to the Drury Inn.
She wouldn’t. That was for my benefit. I don’t know where she would go, but it would not be there.
I offered her the other spring roll, for later. She would not take it. I shoved it in my backpack, where it later turned over, spilling duck sauce all over my Fossil wallet.
Every day I take my handfuls of meds and think of Nod and wonder if she needs them (or some sort of mental health care*), too. The quiet hunger in her eyes, the dejection and loneliness she presented sitting on that milkcrate makes me think she probably does.
*According to the National Coalition for Homelessness, 20-25% of the homeless suffer from severe mental illness.