Farragut Square

by Jillian Danback-McGhan

Every day for the past year, I walked past the same man sitting on a park bench in Farragut Square rattling the meager change inside a Big Gulp cup. His pitch altered with the seasons: 
“Help a man stay hy-drate-ed! Ain’t no summer like those in the District!”

“It’s cold again, folks! Freezing out here. Spare whatcha got before heading into those heated of-fi-ces!” 

His bellowed appeals and resonant tenor echoed off both the historic, wrought iron and weathered stone buildings and the modern, glass and chrome edifices standing as sentinels around the Square. Most passers-by directed their eyes to some point far off in the distance. A few tossed dollar bills from their leather wallets before scurrying with their briefcases and totes into K Street offices. Even the statue of Admiral Farragut, the green, weathered bronze sculpture looming nearly thirty feet above the eponymous Square, seemed to divert his gaze at the squalor surrounding him. 
Sometimes, the man brought cardboard signs. He had impeccable handwriting, a detail that belied his missing teeth and the layers of tattered rags he wore. 

ITS RAININ’ ITS POURIN’

CROWDSOURCE MY UMBRELLA

About a month later, he designed another sign which immediately grabbed my attention: 

GOT GUILT??

Donate Here!!

I gave him twenty dollars for that one. I can hardly escape my own sense of entitlement while living in this city. Besides, as a marketing professional, I had an appreciation for his craft. 
“Well done,” I told him as I handed him the folded bill. 
“Glad you like it. Keep Freddie in mind next time!” 
In the months that followed, I ensured I dropped few singles into his cup or would purchase an extra coffee and a bagel for him every time I passed.
My meager daily offerings seemed pathetic against the sullen seasonal backdrop. The crisp charms of winter evade downtown Washington, D.C. in January. In its place is the harsh foreboding chill of remembrance and soggy isolation. Gusts of cold wind funneled between buildings and gushed out in spontaneous, bitter torrents. The entire Square appeared gray and sodden, while the green statue of Admiral Farragut towered indifferently over the blots of faded fabric and weathered tents erected at the base of the statue. On the worst of one of these bleak mornings, one of Freddie’s signs, propped at the marble base of Admiral Farragut’s statue, once again caught my eye:

NAVY Man. Help me get my anchor away aweigh

“Never knew you were in the Navy.” I said, fishing out all the cash that I had in my wallet: seven dollars. A gleeful smile spread across his chapped face. “I did my time in the Navy as well.” 
“Actually, this sign’s a bit of a tall tale.” Freddie responded. “I wasn’t until just a short while ago, but now I’m working with the Admiral.”
“Who?” I asked, glancing down at the empty liquor bottles and the American flag blanket peeking out of the garbage bag sitting at Freddie’s feet. 
Freddie pointed up. “Him,” he said. “the Admiral.” He lifted his hand, partially covered by the tattered remains of a filthy yellow glove, to the statue of Admiral Farragut.
“Ah,” I said, and began to walk away. “I hope he doesn’t keep you too busy.”
“Thank you, dearest. He wanted me to let you know he sends his regards.”
“Excuse me?” I abruptly stopped. A woman in a camel coat plowed into me as I turned to face him, diverting head-on into the steady stream of pedestrian traffic surging through the Square. 
Freddie merely pointed upwards again. “The Admiral says hello. Said you were the prettiest officer he ever seen.” 
My limbs stiffened. Freddie appeared in control of his faculties – surely, he didn’t think he worked alongside a Civil War naval officer. Still, his comment awoke a dormant terror inside of me. I had walked through Farragut Square for almost a decade now, casually dismissing the link to my past it represented. That past now stood before me, a reminder from the most unlikely of messengers.
Realizing our conversation had delayed my arrival into the office, I wordlessly sprinted from Freddie and into my office building. I only had a moment to throw my bag upon my desk, shrug off my coat, and grab my notebook before heading into Peter’s office for our 8:00 meeting. 
Peter’s office spanned the length of half of K Street and overlooked Farragut Square from four wide, floor-length windows. The morning sunlight filtering through the windows and glinted off of the silver picture frames and the crystal awards littering his desk. I squinted at the metallic haze it created as I stood in front of his open door. 
“Vera!” Peter called and waved me in. My heels clicked noisily as I left the carpeted hallway and strode upon the hardwood floors which started at the threshold of his office. 
“Grab a seat. Can Leah get you something? She’s making me an espresso.” 
“I won’t say no to coffee,” I responded, sinking into the plush leather seat in front of his oak desk. 
“Let’s get down to it.” He slapped his hands on his desktop, causing the smiling faces in the picture frames – turned outwards and precariously perched on the very edge of his desk – to leap upward in response.
“We haven’t really had the chance to work together before. But I’ve heard great things about you. How long have you been one of our marketing directors?”
“Almost ten years now,” I replied. “After I left the Navy, I, um, took a year off, then went to graduate school, joined the firm shortly thereafter, and have been here ever since.” 
“Ah, that’s right, a Navy girl,” Peter replied. “What did you do?”
“I was on a ship, an officer. Spent about four years in, then decided it was time to do something different. I was on USS Farragut, actually, as luck would have it.” I shook my head, attempting to chase away Freddie’s words from this morning: the Admiral says hello. “Guess there’s no escaping him.” Suddenly conscious of my trembling hands, I forced a quick laugh at the end of my sentence.
“Sorry?” Peter asked. 
“Farragut was the name of the ship I was on when I was in the Navy. And Farragut Square is right across the street.” I said, pointing out the window. “Funny coincidence, is all.”
“Right.” Peter replied. “I’m not one for city geography. Don’t take the metro, glide in and out of the parking garage under the building. But Farragut… I read somewhere that the Navy has always had a ship by that name. Superstition or something.”
“More tradition, really. The Nay’s big on history, and he was the first Admiral. And, well,” I watched Peter’s eyes glaze over as I spoke. “Anyway, you mentioned you wanted to discuss a campaign with me?”
“Yes. This is the year you’re looking to get promoted to partner, right?” Peter’s attention quickly returned. He smiled when I nodded.
“Your promotion year is difficult, as you well know. You have to make the business case before the other partners, and it always helps to have a big-ticket account to your name. Which is why I called you in. But before we get into that, do you have a family?” He asked, motioning to the blonde figures smiling at me from within their silver frame. 
“A family? Well, yes, my parents live outside of Philly. I try to take the train up and see them every month or so.”
“No, not that. I meant kids? Husband?” Peter asked, then rapidly added, “Or wife. Partner-person.”          
I looked down again at the other pictures guarding the edge of Peter’s desk: two girls and a boy who both appeared to be no more than ten, standing at the bottom of a ski lift; a slender woman with large diamond jewelry and wavy blonde hair sitting on the steps of a brick porch, holding a plump, drooling baby; a blonde, gangly boy with missing front teeth hugging a golden retriever. 
“No. Nothing like that.” I said, deliberately omitting the divorce I finalized six months ago.  
“Well, then.” Peter clapped his hands. “No one to miss you when I steal you away for the next three months. I’d like you to lead our newest campaign!” 
I spent the rest of day staffing my team and building out our approach based upon the few client documents Peter sent my way. The new challenge served as a welcome distraction from the morning’s events. Freddie’s words and the uneasiness they stoked sunk into the recesses of my memory. 
“Call your loved ones now so they don’t report you missing!” Peter called as he passed by my office at 2:30 that afternoon, his briefcase and coat in hand. 
Darkness shrouded the city when I departed the building at 7, stepping into the cruel slap of bitter wind funneling through the buildings lining both sides of the street. I traversed Farragut Square on my way to the metro and noticed how the area transformed at night. An uneasy tension enveloped the area. Masses of blankets draped over and tucked around benches, creating make-shift tents on the street. Commuters held their bags more closely and intentionally avoided eye contact. Amber streetlights cast amber light from above, causing pedestrians to drag long shadows on the sidewalk behind them. An umbra obscured Admiral Farragut’s face, as if he closed his eyes in a dismissive slumber.
I saw Freddie leaning against the metro entrance, wrapped in layers of dirty towels and a sleeping bag with a broken zipper. A man in a dark coat and charcoal colored beanie hunched next to Freddie in conversation, his face wrapped a gray scarf. He darted away as I approached.
“There you are, dearest!” Freddie called. “Late one for you!” 
“Yeah.” I called back. That word: dearest. It had been so long since I heard it and felt the latent terror it elicited. That, along with the fierce cold, diminished any pathos welling in my chest that would have otherwise caused me to pull out my wallet.
“You’d better find someplace to get inside tonight. It’s too cold out here for you.”
Freddie smiled. “I was just talking to the admiral, ya know. You just missed him. Said again how you were the prettiest officer he ever did see.”
“Who told you to say that?” I asked, overwhelmed by a sudden flash of panic and the inexplicable sensation of sweating despite the cold. “Where are you getting this?” The current of metro commuters flowed around us both at a distance. 
“The Admiral, of course. He just left. He said he returned to check up on you.”
I shook my head. You’re overreacting. Freddie is drunk and telling wild stories and can tell he got a rise out of you. That’s all. 
“Stop it. In fact, please stop talking to me.” I told him in as dispassionate a voice as I could muster and darted into the gaping mouth of the metro entrance.
You’re safe, I told myself, despite hyperventilating as soon as the metro doors closed. You’re safe. I repeated as a mantra the entire way home, attempting to calm my pounding heart and ease the dizziness. You’re being ridiculous. 
Back at home, I poured myself a glass of wine, then another, before calling Mary, my closest friend and former roommate when we both served together on Farragut. Our conversations and rare visits felt disjointed in the past few years, interrupted by her boisterous admonitions directed toward one of her three children. Tonight, Mary managed to settle all her kids into bed for the evening and spoke without interruption. She congratulated me on the new campaign and updated me on her kids’ latest attempts to fray her final nerve. When I told her about the incident with Freddie, her voice assumed a different tone.
“Let me get this straight – there’s a homeless man living outside your office who is sending you messages from Admiral Farragut?” She asked. We both laughed, but I detected the concern lingering in her voice.
“I know how it sounds. I’m not having a breakdown. Or, another, I guess. But something about it really creeped me out, Mary. Like I’m unable to escape the past. And I mean that literally: that fucking statue is right there and now I have some poor man running around saying thing that remind me so much of... Does any of this make sense?”
“Look, I know you’re not crazy,” she replied. “But you have to trust yourself not to be, either. You had a hell of a time on that ship. I lived through it with you. And you’ve had your ups and downs since then. But it has been over ten years. It is in the past. And unlike my children, the past doesn’t bite.” 
“No”, I said, draining the contents of my wine and watching translucent, burgundy-tinted remnants of liquid bleed down the side of the glass in slow moving rivulets. “But it can hurt like a bitch.”
“Maybe you should talk to someone,” she said softly.
“You know I have,” I replied. “But it just keeps coming back, you know? Sometimes I’m relieved it does. That means I didn’t make it all up. Like everyone thought I did.”
I closed my eyes, weary from the day’s excitement, and instantly heard a voice emerge from the recesses of my brain, male, authoritative, and sharp: This is the type of accusation that can ruin a man’s career. Are you sure you aren’t overreacting? 
Could I ever be sure? I wondered.
“Look,” Mary continued. “You have a stressful job, and with the divorce being so recent and all, I’m sure that brings up all kinds of old thoughts. But that’s stuff’s over now, Vera. Let it stay in the past.” 
That next morning, and for most mornings throughout the rest of January and February, I eschewed the metro in favor of driving to work. I told myself it made more sense to drive. I left the office so late in the evening that it was probably safer that way. Shame piqued me in those rare moments I allowed myself to admit that I drove to avoid seeing Freddie in the Square.
The grueling pace of the campaign left little opportunity for self-reflection, though. I arrived at the office around 7:30, and never managed to leave until well after midnight. Peter seemed to vanish every time I needed him to weigh in on a decision, only to reappear with a vague criticism that required significant rework from our team. When I asked him about it, he merely shrugged and slapped me on the back: “You can figure it out. That’s why we’re going to make you a partner one day!”
Somewhere during the grueling haze of spending nearly all of my waking hours and weekends at the office, I managed to lose sight of the anxiety I felt about passing Freddie on the street. I still didn’t take the metro, but occasionally managed to work up enough courage to venture out onto K Street for coffee breaks. 
During one such trip with Alex, one of my managers, I spotted Freddie. He had moved from the Square to the K Street sidewalk and transformed a bench into a cave of blankets and tarps from which only his eyes and nose were exposed. His eyes rolled back in a dreamlike state. A lanky, hunched, and hooded figure crouched beside him, nudging him gently. I almost passed by without Freddie noticing Alex and I.
Almost. 
In a barely perceptible voice, I heard him call from beneath his ragged layers. His greeting caused my stomach to turn.
 “Long time, dearest.”
“Did you hear that?” I asked Alex. 
“That homeless guy moaning?” She responded, flashing me a puzzled look.
“Never mind,” I answered.  
On our way back, we passed by Freddie again. He sat alone, his companion having apparently vanished. When he saw us, he grew animated and started to flair his arms. He lumbered from his hut and paced frantically and erratically in front of the bench. 
“I have to tell you something, miss. It’s real important.” His voice slurred strangely, and he staggered as he approached us.
“Not now, Freddie. I need to go.” I said, trying to act unperturbed.
“Do you know him?” Alex asked, quickly retreating away from where Freddie stood.
“I used to talk with him sometimes, but…”
Freddie cut me off.
“It’s the Admiral! Look, miss, I don’t know what he’s about, but he’s been asking for you and I don’t like it. I didn’t think nothing of it, and I’m sorry. I need to tell you.” At that, he grabbed my right arm, causing me to jolt backwards and spill coffee down the sleeve of my jacket and stain his yellow gloved hand. 
Alex’s eyes grew wide and she darted away into the safety of our office lobby only a few feet ahead of us. 
“Let go!” I pulled my arm back and took off toward the building. Freddie followed.
“No, you don’t understand. I did a bad thing. We need to talk to make this right.”
I made it into the lobby just as two of our building security guards rushed out and grabbed Freddie by the arms. I paused to look back, watching Freddie struggle to push them away. 
“Get inside,” one guard ordered. “We’ll come up for your statement later.”
“Go easy,” I said, feeling a stab of guilt in my chest as I looked back to watch them wrestle Freddie out of the lobby. “There’s something wrong with him today. He… He’s different.” 
“Inside!” the other ordered. 
About an hour later, the security guards met me in my office with a police officer following them. They asked me to relate the events of the morning as well as any other previous interactions I had with Freddie.
“Did something else happen?” I asked, realizing their line of interrogation exceeded the scope of today’s encounter.
The officer looked at the security guards then closed his notebook.
“Freddie, as you referred to him, is Mr. Frederick Williams. He had his ID on him. He apparently stays with his sister most days, but heads out into the streets from time to time when she kicks him out because of his drinking. Some mental issues, nothing violent apparently, but causes him to reject any kind of help. But today it looks like he overdosed. He started seizing after he grabbed you earlier and we sent him to National in an ambulance.” 
“Overdose?” I asked. “I’ve seen him drunk, yes, but he’s never been high, that I could tell at least.  I’ve been chatting with him in passing for a little over a year. He’s clever. Charming at times.”
“They all have a trigger.” the police officer responded. “The cold sometimes does it. Causes people to get desperate. What’s strange is that he had a large quantity of money on him, which means he might have stolen that along with the drugs. Again, desperation. Doubt we’ll ever find out. Thefts like that don’t get reported.” The officer and the two guards stood. I accepted the officer’s card and escorted them to the elevators. 
Freddie never seemed like the type of person who would steal, I thought. He seemed docile. Even in his drug-addled state, he seemed more worried than angry. I started to hyperventilate as I thought of him sitting in the emergency room on his own, and went over our earlier interaction again and again. Are you sure you’re not overreacting?
Later that evening, I called the hospital to check up on his status, but staff wouldn’t reveal any of his information since I wasn’t a family member.
Did I want him to recover? I wondered, hating myself for the momentary sense of relief that lapped over me. Regardless, I ventured out of the office for more frequent breaks, peering into every blanketed mound to see if Freddie had returned. 
I never saw him again. 
By early March, a cold but humid fog descended over the city, making the sidewalks slick with condensation. Walking outside felt like putting on a still-wet bathing suit before venturing to the pool. A light blue haze hung over the Square when I commuted into work in the mornings, and daylight stretched its cramped limbs further and further into the evening as if to cautiously test out the boundaries of how far it could go. Although most days were still wet and bitter, portents of spring appeared subtly and in unexpected ways: salt strips abating from the roads, rain flowing from sidewalk cracks and into sewer drains like tiny streams, boisterous chirps from the robins gathering in alleyways.  
Hope no longer felt foolish. 
Around this time, the marketing campaign wrapped up. Our team held a small celebration in the office, jovially sipping slightly acidic wine from clear plastic cups, while Peter attended the official launch party with the client. The team scattered around eight. I retreated to my office to respond to a few emails long neglected due to the final surges of the campaign launch. The time on my laptop read 11:19 when I finally looked up from my work. Habituated to the loneliness, eerie groanings, and absurd silence of the office after hours, somehow three hours evaporated in front of my keyboard.
I packed up my work bag and shut my office door, watching the motion-sensing lights snap on as I continued down the empty corridor and to the elevator lobby. The void felt familiar and strangely comforting now. I braved the solitude alone, brazenly and slightly triumphantly stepping into the elevator that carried me down into the parking garage underneath the building.
My victorious deportment proved to be short lived. When I reached my car, I glanced up at the parking tag tucked into the driver’s side visor, noticing my monthly parking pass had expired. I would have to pay at the parking kiosk before exiting the garage. 
The parking kiosk resided in a long rectangular vestibule, surrounded on three sides by glass, with a single glass door providing the only entrance or exit to the space. I left my car idling directly in front of the door and jumped out with only my credit card in hand. Inside the vestibule a robotic voice emanated from the kiosk, repeating “Please insert your parking ticket” with the urgency and intensity of a fire alarm. 
As I waited for the machine to spit out my card, I heard a creak and caught the door swing open from the corner of my left eye. I started, unaware of anyone else remaining in the entire building, let alone the parking garage. 
“Hello, dearest,” he said. 
I froze, enveloped by panic.
That voice. I identified it long before I turned to examine the figure before me. Wiry and tall, slightly stooped. I peered into his face, trying to reconcile it with the features I once knew: hollow cheekbones and a prominent jaw, both covered by dark stubbled flecked with white. He wore a charcoal gray beanie, pulled low over his forehead and partially obscuring his deeply set eyes.
Could that really be him? I wondered. I doubted my memories for far too long to rely on them.
But his voice. That I would remember until my dying day.
“Terry?” I asked. “Terry, is that you?” I stammered again.
He slowly nodded his head.
“What are you doing here?” He stood there, silent, smiling the twisted smile which for years prevented me from closing my eyes at night. 
“What are you doing here?” I repeated. “You know you’re not supposed to be anywhere near me.”
“Didn’t you get my messages?” He asked.
“What messages?” I asked. “You know you’re not supposed to contact me.”
“The ones from Freddie, of course. He was so eager. A bit slow, though,” Terry said. “Don’t you know, I told him I was Admiral Farragut when we first met. Thought you’d pick up on the reference. The poor drunken fool, I think he believed me. That, or I paid him too well for him to even bother asking.”
“You… you were the one telling him to say those things.” The hooded figure next to Freddie.
Of course.
Every incident I attempted to repress from the past decade streamed through my head with immense, glaring clarity and violently collided into the reality I constructed in my current life: the cryptic messages Terry would write on my car window; the notes I’d find in my purse when I thought I was out alone, in my kitchen when I thought the apartment was empty. When I awoke in my stateroom on the ship in the middle of the night to find him standing over my bed. What he did after… No. Now was not the time to remember. I needed to focus on getting away.
You are the prettiest officer I’ve ever seen, his first note read. I was 24 at the time, stupid, thinking of this note from a much older officer as a harmless flirtation.
Don’t you dare fucking play with me. I will find you, read the last note, the one that appeared on my windshield when I was visiting a friend in another state.
You tried so hard to forget, I thought, and look what happened. 
I started to hyperventilate, though it felt remote and surreal, as if my chest existed separately from my body and someone else’s breaths were forced in and out of my lungs.
“Didn’t you like them, dearest?” Terry asked. “It’s been far too long since I sent you a message. I wanted to make an effort.”
“Don’t come any closer. There are cameras all over this building.” I cringed listening to my quivering voice. There were cameras, weren’t they? The car is right there. If I could only get past him.
“Those cameras?” Terry gestured up toward a small white cylinder bolted to the ceiling above his head and roughly half a stride in front of him. I shifted my eyes up in a sequence of short glances, too terrified to look away from Terry for longer than the duration of a single one of my frantic heartbeats. The camera pointed away from the door and toward the payment kiosk. From that angle, it captured my every motion while Terry remained behind the lens, completely out of view.
He always knew how far to go, I thought. They’ll only see me: a frantic woman reacting to something invisible.
“They won’t see me, dearest. Which means no one will believe you.” He hissed. “Just like last time. Everyone thought you made it all up, you know. Remember all the things they said about you afterward?” He clucked his tongue in mock censure. 
“I know what they said, but they believed me enough to give me a restraining order against you.”
“A military protective order, dearest. That’s long expired now. Sure, they forced me to retire early. But they also sent you to that hospital so you wouldn’t try to hurt yourself again.” He let out a short, mirthless laugh. “I think I got the better deal.”
I frantically glanced side to side. The expansive bottom floor of the parking garage, completely deserted for the evening, stretched out on all sides, promising escape.
But the thick glass walls boxed me in on all sides.  
“You need to leave.” I said. Terry merely stood and stared back, solemnly shaking his head. My card remained half consumed by the machine, causing it to release high-pitched pleas for attention that reverberated, unnoticed, throughout the tiny space. 
“You really should’ve listened to Freddie, you know. He practically told you I was here, but you ignored him. You’d think you’d be more sympathetic.”
Freddie, I thought mournfully, fighting a wave of nausea rising from my stomach.
“What did you do to him? He did what you wanted, why would you hurt him?”
“Think he figured something was up in one of his sober moments. Went back on the deal we had. Said he was done passing along messages and updating me on your whereabouts. So I had to show him there were consequences for betraying me.” Terry’s face changed sharply. He bared his teeth and squinted his eyes into a vicious expression. “You both needed to be taught.” 
I stepped backwards cautiously, certain he’d spring forward at any moment, until I collided with the glass wall at the farthest corner of the vestibule. Terry remained impassive. 
“Jesus Christ, Terry.” The words left my throat like the garbled end of an echo. “It’s been over ten years! Move on, for God’s sake! Are you for real with this?” 
“Oh dearest, I think the better question is if I’m real at all,” he said. “People thought you were crazy, you know. Still do. Just another hysterical woman who couldn’t take the pressure of being in the military. The better question is… do you believe I’m really here? Or are you imagining things again?”
I involuntarily traced the inside of my wrist, feeling the raised bumps running down my forearm, barely palpable through my thin silk shirt. They had almost faded.
Almost.
“Not for a moment. You’re the one who’s delusional, always have been.”
“Then come over here and see for yourself.” Terry crossed his arms. “Touch me and see if I’m real. Or see if you’re just going crazy again. It’s a stressful time for you, dearest. I heard that triggers some strong emotions.”
He stood still, so still, and stared back at me, daring me to move forward. I willed myself to stride toward him with my arms outstretched. Proving to him that I wasn’t afraid. That he couldn’t control me any longer. Instead, my hands clawed desperately against the cold glass wall behind me.
“Just as I thought. You can’t be bothered, just like the old times. Here I am, trying so hard to get your attention, but you still think you’re too good for the likes of me. Just like before when you flung yourself in front of me and tossed me away.”
“I never did!” I shrieked and stepped forward with a fury that momentarily caused my fear to dissipate and paralyzed all sense of reason. “Never, not for a moment. I know exactly what happened!”
“Don’t you fucking dare tell me what happened.” He bellowed back.
I recoiled in response to his outburst and crumbled to the floor more violently than if I had been struck. Terry laughed at my response.
“I am the one who was wronged, made to look like a fucking idiot! You led me on, thinking the entire time that you were too good for me, too smart, that I was just to be fooled with. And you thought you’d get away by telling all sorts of lies about me, making the Navy put up an invisible fence to make me disappear.”
He paused and flashed a cold, triumphant smile. “No. It doesn’t work like that. You had to pay for that fence with your reputation. I warned you that you would. But that’s not enough. Now you get to know how it feels to always be thinking of someone.”
As he finished his sentence, he lurched forward, springing like a snake ready to strike. I shrieked and threw my arms over my head, as if to shield myself, shaking and sobbing uncontrollably, startling myself with the repellent, putrid sounds that emerged from my mouth.
“Don’t worry,” he continued, his face sanguine in response to my crumbled condition. “I’m not going to hurt you, dearest – not now, at least. But I’ll be wherever you are. Watching as you get your groceries with those cute little yellow bags, or when you head to Penn Station for monthly treks to see your folks. Just like I did the night Scott stormed out of your old townhouse and went to that bar down the street. I actually sent him a beer from across the bar, you know. Poor bastard. I knew just how he was feeling.”
That was the night I told Scott I wanted a divorce, I remembered. The night I told him I married him to feel secure without realizing I never actually would. That he couldn’t help me. That I couldn’t trust him or anyone else. Scott said I needed to get over it, the past belonged in the past. The past bought him a drink that night. 
“Maybe one day I’ll get impatient, like that time outside of your apartment when I had to smash your windshield to get your attention. I hate it when you make me do dramatic things like that. Maybe I’ll have to punish you like poor Freddie. Or I might just get bored and leave you alone. But this much I do know. We belong together. And I’ll always be with you. In person,” he held out his hands to emphasize his point and slowly backed away to the door. “Or in your mind.” 
With that, he walked backwards out of the vestibule, grinning at me the entire time, and disappeared around a corner of the parking garage. 
I don’t remember anything after that. Overwhelmed by emotion, I must have plunged into some overstimulated fugue state which caused me to black out.
When I came to, I found myself in the driver’s seat of my idling car, unsure of how much time had elapsed. Dazed and shaking, I slowly regained my awareness and noticed the alarms violently chiming throughout the vehicle. Blurry forms and shadows gradually coalesced into discernible landmarks. The soft glow of amber street lights illuminated the scene in front of me. I had turned the wrong way into I Street, veered past the bus lane, drove onto the curb, and crashed into a stone marker lining the boundaries of Farragut Square. My windshield wipers dragged loudly and wildly across the glass even though it wasn’t raining. I looked down and traced a trail of crusted vomit down the front of my dress with a trembling hand.  
Directly ahead stood Admiral Farragut, illuminated by a series of upward pointing, faintly flickering bulbs. His head tilted to the left, casting his apathetic, verdigris-crusted gaze into the distance, willfully overlooking the commotion below.

****

Jillian Danback-McGhan is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and served in the Navy for 10 years. Her first published works of fiction will appear in print in Fall 2020. She holds masters of arts degrees from Georgetown University and George Mason University. Jillian lives in Annapolis, MD with her family and is currently working on a collection of short stories.