I have made a point every day to check in on Lewis, to spend a bit of time with him and wash him with love. Sometimes I go twice a day, and sometimes Brid calls me in the middle of the night to join her in soothing him after he wakes up in a sweat, still hearing gunfire and seeing flames and smoke. There is little else we can do for him. It seems unfair, that right after fighting and risking his life in physical battles, he must come home and fight another battle in his spirit.
Still, there are small signs that our work is helping him. He walks with something of his old precision and grace now. He holds his head a little higher. There is food in his kitchen, and sometimes he eats it.
It is a long road we walk with him. But it is moving upwards, and two good things happened today that make me hopeful.
Firstly, Lewis had a job interview today. It went well, although he was so anxious that his interviewer could see it on him the moment he walked in. The job was at a local coffeehouse, small but thriving, and within walking distance from Lewis’ apartment. The owner, a man named Miles Woodson, was polite and friendly, but he had a sharp look in his eye that reminded Lewis of one of his old commanding officers, and that made him stammer slightly as he answered Miles’ questions.
I hovered over Miles’ shoulder, watching his aura and his thoughts. He liked Lewis, I could see that, but he was doubtful about whether Lewis would work out. He seemed to Miles to be a bit too jumpy to work well with others in a small space.
“You don’t have any experience in food service?” Miles asked.
“No, sir, but I’m a quick study and a hard worker,” Lewis answered, staring at the table. I reached out my wing to touch his shoulder, and he took a breath and looked up to meet Miles’ eyes. “All I need is a chance.”
This was all it took with Miles, who values hard work and is generous with chances. He smiled and reached across the table. “When can you start?”
The relief of this achievement, however small it may have seemed, made Lewis positively buoyant as he left the shop half an hour later with new t-shirts under his arm. Determined to keep this mood going, I had him lift his face to the sunlight, watch a flock of birds go flying by, and listen to the chatter of a group of children on their way home from school.
He even admired the figure of a woman jogging toward him while he waited for a light to change. This surprised me, because as yet he has shown no interest in the opposite sex—or indeed, his own. But I was pleased by the change.
The woman was less pleased. She noticed his interest as she drew up even with him, removed one headphone, and demanded, “What are you looking at?”
Her harsh tone brought all the shame and embarrassment back, and I had to fight tooth and wing to keep Lewis from dropping his gaze. “You,” he answered, with only enough confidence to be absolutely honest. “Because ma’am, I’ll tell you, I need to be looking at some beautiful things. The world’s too hard to do anything else.”
Something in his voice—perhaps his honesty, or else the tone of weary resignation under his good mood—made her remove the other headphone and meet his eyes directly. “You’re right about that,” she said. “Let me ask you, then—do you think the world is still good, even though it’s so hard?”
He considered the question. There seemed to be a little bubble of silence around the two of them, a pocket of strangeness in the so-called normal world.
“Yes,” he said finally. “Or at least there’s good in it. And that’s worth fighting for. At least, it better be.” Or why did I have to fight so hard? he thought but did not say.
The light changed then, and the bubble popped, but she did not jog away. “You live around here?” she asked as they started across the street.
He pointed out his apartment complex, and she told him that her house was not two blocks away. She introduced herself as Sarah Rawlins and stayed with him until their paths diverged, making easy conversation. This was new to Lewis, who struggles to make commentary on the weather with most people.
“So where do you work again?” she asked, trying to get a glimpse at the logo on the t-shirts under his arm.
“Uh—Woodcut Coffee,” he said.
Her smile was warm. “Well, maybe I’ll stop by sometime. Good luck, Lewis.”
“You, too,” Lewis said as she jogged off, and cringed. Still, he went back to his apartment with a little core of warmth under his breastbone.
I don’t know if anything will come of it, but it did him good, I do know that. I hope that I can grow that warmth into a flame that will sustain him on its own. We shall see how things go.