Chapter 8 - The Mirror in the Restroom
The legal aid clinic where Clara was referred was located in the basement of the county library. While waiting for her appointment with the domestic violence advocate, she excused herself to the small restroom tucked beneath the concrete stairs.
She turned on the cold water and splashed her face, wincing as the droplets struck the broken skin across the bridge of her nose. The overhead fixture was a single bare fluorescent tube that buzzed with an angry, high-pitched hum.
She looked at herself. The swelling had begun to yellow at the margins, turning the deep plum into an ugly, sickly mustard. Her eyes, once bright and clear, looked sunken, surrounded by dark circles that seemed permanently stained into the bone structure.
For the first time in six months, she didn't search for a way to conceal it. She didn't reach into her purse for the heavy concealer palette she had bought at the mall pharmacy. She simply looked at the face of a survivor who was exhausted to the marrow.
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Behind her, the door opened, and a young woman carrying a toddler entered. The woman looked at Clara’s face, startled, then immediately averted her eyes in that polite, hurried way people do when they brush against someone else’s catastrophe.
"It’s okay," Clara said quietly, more to herself than to the mother. "It’s real."
