floating in a tin can

Lee is doing better, now — there was a while there where it was frightening, the way she withdrew. For three days she didn't speak, didn't eat, it was a struggle to get her to drink water. She was sort of present, mentally, but distant, distracted, like she was half somewhere else the whole time, lost somewhere inside her own head. Lee has always been depressed, he knows this about her, that she gets blue for no reason, but this is different. When it passes, she won't talk about whatever it was. She doesn't seem to understand that anything was different.

She talks to people who aren't there. She listens in on the walls. She regards the front door with suspicion, and complains about hearing footsteps above them — nobody lives in that apartment. He catches her scrutinizing her teeth in the mirror, then acting like she wasn't looking. She keeps trying to guess what he's thinking and failing, and she plays it like a joke or a game but she seems suspicious and disturbed afterwards. All of that is bizarre, but it doesn't stop her from living a regular day-to-day existence; it's the things she doesn't do that are hurting her.

She's finding it harder and harder to work, because it's hard to get out of bed. At the Chelsea she lived with a photographer, he'd wake her up at 3 in the morning if he had a brilliant idea he needed to shoot right then, and he was always dragging her to parties. At Michael's, nobody is there to force Lee to socialise. Nobody is there to drag her out of bed for a 2 o'clock shoot, or throw a party around her so she's in the middle of it anyway. She's frequently late or absent altogether, and how difficult she is to get a hold of is becoming a problem, particularly given that there are days when Michael comes home from work and Lee has still not even gotten out of bed. She's tired. She can't focus. Brushing her hair and getting up to go to the bathroom are difficult tasks for her.

She can't hide it the way she used to, where she'd disappear somewhere else for a few days and say she was ill. Sometimes it worries her. Sometimes she doesn't even notice that something is wrong. Her social withdrawal and lack of passion and motivation are just typical to her. Everyone knows Lee is shy and sensitive, so being sad a lot and not wanting to talk to a lot of people seems like it should be normal.

But she's fine now. She's awake and active and present. She woke up around ten and got out of bed. She brushed her hair. She ate breakfast, all of it, and did the dishes still left in the sink. She remarked wryly on something in the news and climbed out on the fire escape to smoke a cigarette. She was reading a book earlier, another thing she doesn't do when she's ill, and now she's on the sofa with him, writing and doodling in her journal. It's like whatever was going on before just never happened.

Michael is sitting bolt upright beside her, eyes glued to the TV where Walter Cronkite is covering the Apollo 11 landing, but it's not going to happen for another fourteen minutes. Lee is laying horizontally like she likes to, draped with her head in his lap, glancing at the television sideways sometimes to make sure she doesn't miss it. She still can't quite believe this is really happening; it seems like the stuff of science fiction still, men putting their feet on the moon. Eventually she pokes Michael in the leg. “You're tense.”