The Girls at 17 Swann Street Read online

  Still no reaction.

  I would have dinner and evening snack on my own. Well, ideally with you.

  I smile.

  I would sleep at home and come back the next day, like school.

  I watch him cautiously process this:

  No more visiting hours …

  No, Matthias. No Direct Care watching us from the window. No more walks whose trajectory lines the borders of the garden around 17 Swann Street. No more sneaking around to kiss, no more saying goodbye, no more lonely bed.

  I get my wife back,

  he whispers, overwhelmed. Matthias finally understands.

  This is not over,

  I hasten to clarify.

  It is just a phase transition.

  He nods; we both understand that this is not the finish line. But we have come this far, haven’t we? So far since that first day here. Keep walking.

  Matthias takes me by the hand and we dance.

  We dance, on a bad drawing of a big jet plane, in a sunroom at the back of a house with peach-pink walls at number 17, Swann Street. There is no music, but an entire orchestra is playing in our heads.

  We had danced on the sidewalk on our first date, and months later, when we were married. I remember how close his face had been to mine, noticing every feature for the first time. I look at them now: the freckle I had marked as my own under his right eye, his lashes that curved up. The scar on his upper lip, that had tasted of ice cream that first date, first kiss.

  Since then we have danced in nightclubs and in bars, in kitchens and in hospital waiting rooms. Now, in a treatment center for women with eating disorders.

  He is humming a song. I know the lyrics well:

  … a ride on a big jet plane.

  Hey, hey …

  He kisses me on the lips and says:

  I will, you know.

  What?

  Take you away, in a big jet plane.

  Where?

  To Vienna, to Rome, to Phuket, Tokyo, and Havana. To the farthest place in the world from here. To wherever you want, but first, I was thinking, we could go home on Monday. And then to Paris.

  Home, yes, and Paris, please. We dance on in the quiet room, to the end of visiting hours and a song no one else can hear. To violins, cello, and harp in a magnificent movement, and trilling, rippling piano keys. Then we step out of the plane and I walk Matthias back to the front door.

  90

  Monday morning. Six Mondays ago, my life was ending here. I open my eyes; it is still beautifully purple in the Van Gogh room. Vitals and weights soon, then the sun will rise, for the last time from this angle I hope. Then, after breakfast, I might as well carry my suitcase downstairs.

  After the walk, I will have a few forms to sign, I suppose, then will spend the day with the girls, alternating meals, sessions, snacks. There may be new admissions, but they will be busy with orientation all day. I will not meet the patient who moves into this bedroom after me.

  I get out of bed and wear my flower-print robe, flap to the front, for the last time. I head downstairs for vitals and weights early. Discharge Day has begun.

  Two short hours later, the smell of coffee beckons me back down for breakfast. Yes, I would love a good cup of coffee now, and—

  Surprise!

  There are colorful streamers strewn across on the breakfast table. Glittering cards with my name on them. The girls are already at the table, each in her spot. I have a card for each of them too.

  I hand them out, then sit down to this celebration of my Discharge Day, looking at every face, starting to feel emotional.

  You girls are wonderful—

  But Emm interrupts:

  Coffee?

  The pot of steaming black brew is passed around the table. No emotions, not yet. All right, Emm. At Direct Care’s signal, we peel the plastic film off our bowls and reach for our spoons.

  Monday is cereal day. My first bowl contains what looks like a whole tub of yogurt. In my second, a mountain, a mountain chain of sugar-coated, glistening cereal.

  Frosties and vanilla yogurt. To think they had once paralyzed me. I sprinkle the light flakes onto the creamy swirls. There is silence around the table. Also, silence in my chest where, a few weeks ago, panic had been. I dip my spoon into the bowl and the earth remains still. I take a bite with academic curiosity.

  Contrasts: smooth cream coating the hard, uneven ridges, little sugar crystals forming peaks. It feels cold and tastes cold. Hints of tangy and sweet. I listen to it crunch and crackle and wonder if one day it will be quiet in my head.

  The patient manual clearly states:

  Only 33% of women with anorexia nervosa maintain full recovery after nine months. Of those, approximately one-third will relapse after the nine-month mark.

  Next to me, Emm has not touched her yogurt yet.

  No predictors of relapse exist.

  Or of surviving treatment in the first place.

  In the seat next to her, Sarah fills the silence by reading our horoscopes herself. We take them seriously, as the rules at 17 Swann Street say we should.

  Full recovery of women with bulimia nervosa is significantly higher than anorexia,

  I remember reading in the manual,

  Up to 74% maintain recovery after the nine-month mark.

  She then distributes copies of the daily word jumbles Emm brought. Silence again as we pore over them in between mushy and crunchy bites.

  All eating disorders are chronic, and the risk of relapse remains. It is greatest within the four-to-nine-month period following discharge from inpatient care.

  Tomorrow I will be eating breakfast at a different table, with different girls. Will I still be eating breakfast in four to nine months?

  Symptoms may return.

  Perhaps, but I have seven minutes of breakfast time left and a small hill of Frosties to swallow. Then I have to run upstairs and zip my suitcase shut.

  The minute hand on the clock hits eight thirty. My last breakfast is over. The dirty dishes are piled high in the sink, and we are dismissed.

  In community space, the discussion of the day is about what I will do when I leave. Will I go back to my old job at the supermarket? I hope not. Will I go back to school? Will I try to have a baby? Will I start dancing again?

  I do not know,

  I reply. And I genuinely do not. One step, one day, one meal at a time.

  What would all of you do?

  Dreams fly around the room like the streamers that had colored the breakfast table. Travel plans, family plans, career, love, life goals. Emm remains silent. She speaks last.

  Her dream overrules all of ours:

  If I could leave, I would go on a walk. A very long walk in the countryside. Somewhere fresh, with my sister. Maybe talk, but mostly just walk, I think.

  I know Emm would not appreciate me reaching for her hand in public. No superfluous words or display of emotion; our friendship was not built that way.

  Direct Care comes in.

  Morning walk, ladies?

  Emm, of course, leads the way.

  By the time we return I have gathered enough courage to go to her. She is in her alcove. The daily jumbles, and my card I see, are in her hand.

  I think I like your suggestion best.

  She looks at me, confused.

  About what I should do when I leave here. I’d like a walk in the countryside, and

  I pause,

  I would like you to come too.

  I notice the change in her expression; I am crossing a line, I know. I keep going:

  I want you to leave 17 Swann Street and go on a walk with me. I know I am not your sister, and I know you do not want to. But I also know you can and that there are Olympics every four years.

  Pause for breath and courage.

  We do not have to talk. We can just walk and breathe, but I need you to walk and breathe with me. I’ll wait as long as you need me to.

  Why?

  I shrug. Because that is what we do, Emm.
<
br />   At six fifteen, I do not say goodbye to the girls. I cannot. In fact, as they line up for dinner, the last thing I tell them is a lie: I forgot to empty my cubby.

  Do not wait for me. I will do that then follow you.

  Direct Care does not contradict me. She and I watch them walk away, across the grass and into the house adjacent to 17 Swann Street.

  I was a part of that picture for so long. How strange it feels to stand here. I am not cured. I am not ready; I am terrified of what is coming. But I lift my chin higher. Keep walking, Anna. I see Matthias’s blue car drive down the street.

  My blue suitcase. One last walk through the house at 17 Swann Street. Its peach-pink walls, the orange-pink sky, the pink magnolia tree. Goodbye to Direct Care, then we leave her and all of this behind us, radio off, windows rolled down, my hand on Matthias’s shifting gears.

  The car turns at the end of the street, and the house disappears. I am going home. We are going home. I get to sleep next to Matthias tonight.

  91

  The carols are playing on loop in my head, but I do not mind. It is nearly Christmas in a year I did not think would end. It is nearly Christmas and snowing outside, and for once it looks beautiful. It is nearly 7:00 P.M. Matthias’s stomach is grumbling on the couch.

  He is half naked, half asleep. My eyes trace the contour of his chest. I know every crevice, every ridge, every freckle by heart. I spent the last six months rediscovering them. Rediscovering me and how my head fit under his chin, my ear over his heart. I can see it, just barely, pulsing from where I sit.

  Six months since I last slept alone in Patient Bedroom Number 5 of a peach-pink house on 17 Swann Street. I have not been back. I am far from cured; it has been long and difficult. Eight A.M. to six P.M., every day. But every night I have had dinner with Matthias and fallen asleep next to him.

  Dinner tonight will be quick and easy: spaghetti with tomatoes, basil, and rosemary, fresh from the pots on the windowsill. Matthias will chop some salad on the side, and there should be some Chianti left. Tufts of snow are floating delicately down Furstenberg Street. I wonder if it is snowing on Swann Street as well.

  I think of that house and those girls every day. At 9:10, the morning walk. My heart breaks at morning rain, because it means they must stay indoors. At twelve thirty they sit down to lunch. I sit down to lunch too. I am scared with them and breathe with relief when, at one fifteen, it is done. Then they have apple cinnamon tea. I have ginger sometimes. I think of them most of all at dusk. I miss them terribly.

  I did not choose anorexia. I did not choose to starve. But every morning, over and over, I choose to fight it, again.

  The spaghetti is ready.

  Matthias.

  He stirs but his eyelids remain subbornly shut in protest. I go to the couch, kiss each, then his nose. Then his cheeks. And get carried away. Within seconds he is wide awake, fighting me off, kissing me, laughing.

  When he finally lets me come up for breath to announce,

  Dinner is ready,

  the boy I love kisses the girl he married and says:

  Dinner can wait.

  My name is Anna, and I am the luckiest girl in the world. I am a dancer, a constant daydreamer. I like sparkling wine in the late afternoon, ripe and juicy strawberries in June. Quiet mornings make me happy, dusk makes me blue. Like Whistler, I like gray and foggy cities. I see purple in gray and foggy days. I believe in the rich taste of real vanilla ice cream, melting stickily from a cone.

  I believe in love. I am still madly in love, I am still madly loved. I have books to read, places to see, babies to make, birthday cakes to taste. I even have unused birthday wishes to spare.

  But now the spaghetti is cold and we are running late.

  We sit down to eat. Matthias announces that it tastes good anyway, and that I have sauce on my chin. I laugh through my last slurpy bite. He has seconds.

  We do the dishes clumsily. Orchid watered, lights out. Suitcases zipped, we dash out the door. We have a plane to catch. To Paris. Hey, hey.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you,

  Mon chéri, for not letting me quit;

  Merya, for not letting me quit;

  Mamy, Papi, and Marwan, for not letting me quit;

  Scott, for not letting me quit;

  Amy Tannenbaum, for not letting me quit;

  Claudia, Maggie, Colette, and Joe, for not letting me quit.

  Thank you, Paul and Corky, Andrej and Jessica, Anne, Cooper, and Tika, for visiting 17 Swann Street.

  Thank you, Leslie Gelbman, for falling in love with 17 Swann Street.

  Thank you, Alienor Moore, Henri Mohrman, Riwa Zwein, Lynn Dagher, Helen and Karen Karam, Jane Swim, Isabelle Hoët, Rose McInerney, Jen Enderlin, Dori Weintraub, Tiffany Shelton, and everyone at St. Martin’s Press, and most importantly,

  thank you to the girls at 17 Swann Street.

  Yara

  Author’s Note

  17 Swann Street is a fictional place, but eating disorders are very real. Anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating, and others, are mental illnesses, not poor habits, and those who have them are suffering greatly. These diseases are quiet and deadly.

  They do not have to be.

  Anna is the luckiest girl in the world; she has anorexia, but she is alive. She is recovering because she has access to treatment and support from those who love her. Not everyone does, but everyone should. So if, while reading this story, you recognize bits of your own self or someone you love, please say something.

  Contact a therapist or doctor. Call an eating disorder hotline. Help is available online and via text as well if you prefer. Talk to that someone you love. Talk to that someone who loves you.

  Please say something. I know it is difficult. The conversation that follows will be too, but it could alter the story before it ends at 17 Swann Street.

  I hope this helps.

  I wish you well,

  Yara

  About the Author

  Yara Zgheib is a Fulbright scholar with a master’s degree in Security Studies from Georgetown University and a Ph.D. in International Affairs in Diplomacy from Centre d’Études Diplomatiques et Stratégiques in Paris. She is fluent in English, Arabic, French, and Spanish. Yara is a writer for several U.S. and European magazines, including The Huffington Post, Four Seasons Magazine, A Woman’s Paris, The Idea List, and Holiday magazine. She writes on culture, art, travel, and philosophy on her blog, Aristotle at Afternoon Tea. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapte
r 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THE GIRLS AT 17 SWANN STREET. Copyright © 2019 by Yara Zgheib. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.