"Josh?" I am standing outside his office door. I don’t go inside there very often anymore. That’s his space and as an assistant who gives him what he needs — I give him his space.

"Yeah?" He looks up from the legal pad he’s scribbling on.

"You have an appointment in forty-five minutes," I say. "With Daniel." That’s secret code for ‘your therapist’.

"Oh, right," he remembers. He looks around for a moment, as though trying to locate something.

I hold up his sports jacket. "Josh."

"Thanks, Donna."

I hand it to him, and he looks at it like it’s going to bite him. He expects me to help him put it on, like ‘Donna The Inefficient and Annoying Assistant’ used to do. I pull it back and hold it at the collar, so that he can slip his arms into the sleeves. "You can go home, Donna," he says.

"I still have a million things to do," I respond.

"Like what?" We are moving at a brisk pace down the corridor.

"Mrs. Landingham called," I say, wanting to avoid his question. "The President wanted to move Staff up to 7:30."

"In the morning?"

"Yes, Josh."

"Okay."

"And I made an appointment for you to meet with Congressman Collins tomorrow. Lunch. You have a one o’clock reservation at Chez Robert."

"I love that place."

"I know." We reach the lobby of the West Wing, where he turns for the exit and I head back to my desk.

"Donna?"

Just go, Josh. "Hmm?"

"What other things do you have left to do?"

"As you are so fond of telling me, Josh, we are running a country here."

"That doesn’t answer my question, Donnatella."

"I have some research to do." I say in a rush. "I’m wasting time here, Josh."

"Okay," he gives that strange, uncomfortable searching look again. Like he’s trying to remember if he turned the iron off. He is scrutinizing me, but I don’t think he’s aware of it.

"Josh, I’m sorry about the memo." I feel an overwhelming need to apologize for my screw-up.

"The memo?"

"Oversight."

"Right," he says. "Why are you apologizing?"

"Nevermind," I say. He doesn’t remember anyway. He’s moved on already. "Go." When he is gone I am able to relax just a little.

I go back to Josh’s office and pull a lightweight lock box out of his bottom drawer. In the box are a financial ledger and his checkbook. His bills are due in a few days and I have to get them paid.

I settle at my desk with his bills, the ledger, and the checkbook. The first one I open is the American Express bill. I casually glance at his expenditures looking for any anomalies, and I find one that makes me take a second look.

Lancaster Glass. Right, I think. I had forgotten.

Four weeks ago, just before Christmas, Josh came in with his hand wrapped in bandages. He told me, despite my lack of inquiry, that he broke a glass while setting it down.

"Okay," I had said.

Aren’t you going to ask me why I didn’t inquire after his hand?

I didn’t ask him because I already knew. His building superintendent had called that morning. He wanted me to pass a message along to Josh — that message being that someone was going to have to pay for the window he broke. I told the man that I would take care of it and to please send the bill to Josh Lyman care of Donnatella Moss. When Josh came in that morning, his hand wrapped in bandages, I put two and two together.

When the bill came, I put the payment on his credit card, with the full knowledge that only I would see the statement. And now I’m holding it in my hand.

I spend the next two hours writing out checks and sealing envelopes. I tabulate his expenses for the month and compare it with his pay stubs. The next hour and a half is spent making sure this information ended up meticulously detailed and printed in the ledger. The yearly disclosure is coming up and I need to make sure that Josh is ready.

When I’ve completed my task I put the bill statements in an accordion file and lock it in my bottom desk drawer. The remainder of the materials I return to Josh’s office.

I glance at the Naval clocks on the wall. It’s just after midnight and I need to be back here at 6:30. No, make that 6:00. The senior staff meeting was moved up half an hour.

I have to try to get some sleep tonight.

****

Hot water cascades over my body, in another failed attempt to cleanse the images of the latest nightmare from my brain. My hands are shaking so I place them on the tiled wall in front me as I lean into the stream of scalding water. I close my eyes and let the water drench my hair, which falls down in wet sheets over my face.

I can’t breathe, but I don’t fight it until my lungs are burning with desperate need for air. After washing the hair out of my face, I turn my back to the spigot, hoping that the heat will relax the bunching of muscles in my shoulders. I notice that there is quite a build up of mildew on some of the tiles at the back of my shower. That simply won’t do. I pick up the scrub brush that is sitting on the floor in the corner and take to scrubbing the offending tiles with a vengeance.

The clumsiness of the scrub brush does little to remove the mildew from the grout of my shower tiles. For some reason, in this moment, I have become fixated on the cleanliness of my shower. I turn the water off and step out the shower, groping for my bathrobe on the bathroom door hook. Securing the ties of my terry cloth robe, I hunker down and open the cabinet doors under my bathroom sink. I find an old toothbrush and a can of Scrub-a-Dub.

I use the toothbrush to remove what mildew I can, before lifting the Scrub-a-Dub and taking aim. I spray from six inches away, just as the instructions direct me. I watch with intense fascination and a little bit of self-righteousness, as the liquid cleanser bubbles and begins its attack on my filthy shower.

And then the smell hits me.

The smell of odorous chemicals fills my nostrils — so many, I can’t distinguish them all. But underneath, there is the alcohol. My lightheadedness quickly turns into nausea and I’m trying not to slip in the wet shower as I make a run for the toilet. I stub my toe on the shower door, but I make to the bowl just in time.

I had a chicken salad sandwich for dinner, but like most of the meals I’ve eaten over the last two weeks, it didn’t stay in my stomach very long. My choking and cramping causes the tears again. I break a nail when I grip the side of the bowl too hard.

When I am through, there is more blood. After flushing the toilet and rinsing my mouth with a glass of water, I collapse on the cool tile floor. I lean against the wall and draw my knees into my chest. I cry so hard that I can’t breathe.

I conquer my emotions as quickly as I can, trying to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth.

"Donna?" My roommate is outside my door. God, I hope she didn’t hear me crying. "Are you in there?"

I’m not in my bed and the lights are on in my bathroom. Where else would I be? "Yeah," I answer. I stand up from the floor and rewrap my bathrobe before opening the door.

I step through quickly and close the door behind me. I am afraid she will smell the vomit I just flushed down the toilet.

"What are you doing up so early? It’s 3:30 in the morning."

I am well aware of what time it is. "I have to be in to work early. Josh wants to go over a few things." I lie to her. I have become a liar.

"You look like you need a vacation. And I mean that in a three-weeks-in-a-good-sanitarium way, Donna. You look like Hell chewed you up and spit you out."

"Thanks, Karen." I blow her off.

"I’m serious, Donna. If you don’t tell Lyman to stop working you so hard, I will. I’ve seen how the man behaves when he’s drunk. I’ve got blackmail material."

Karen has always been a good friend. She never holds back the truth. Right now, I wish she were more of the do-your-own-thing kind of roommate.

"When was the last time you looked in a mirror, Donna? You’ve lost weight, and you really can’t spare it. The bags under your eyes are enough to double as a Halloween costume. And, I’m not sure, but I think you’re anemic."

"Thank you, Doctor." I am beginning to feel claustrophobic in my own room. Karen follows me into the den.

"Damn it! You think I don’t know what’s going on, Donna? I live in the room right next to yours, for god’s sake. You think I can’t hear it when you throw up? You think I can’t hear it when your nightmares wake you. They sure as hell wake me."

They wake her? It’s then that I notice she is dressed for travel and that her suitcase is standing at the front door. "Going somewhere?" I ask.

"Out of the country," she says. "I put my itinerary on the fridge three days ago. I’ll be gone for three weeks."

"Safe trip."

"Talk to me, Donna," she pleads.

"Nothing to talk about."

"Are you vomiting blood?"

How does she know that? I turn my head away. I can’t look at her.

"You are, aren’t you?" Karen decides to move in for the kill. "What is going on with you?" When I don’t answer, she continues. "I think you need to see a therapist, Donna, at the very least, a doctor. I don’t think you’re taking care of business, do you hear me?"

"I am taking care of business," I defend. Business is all I can remember how to take care of.

"If you don’t fix whatever is going on with you, I swear to God, I will call Josh Lyman when I get back and I will tell him, in no uncertain terms, that you need time off."

"I am handling it, Karen!" I think I just woke the downstairs neighbors. Karen cringes. I have never raised my voice to her before.

"You aren’t handling it, Donna. I think that anyone with eyes in their head would be able to see that. Except maybe that deaf, dumb, and blind boss of yours."

"Josh has enough to worry about."

"Josh is a big baby who can’t get past his own traumas."

"He was shot in the chest and almost died!" I scream at her.

"Uh huh," she responds, and I realize she goaded me into saying that.

"Damn you, Karen." She pulls back the curtain and sees that her cab is waiting outside to take her to the airport.

"Fix this, Donna. Or I’m making a call."

"You wouldn’t," I say as she collects her bag.

She opens the door and steps over the threshold. Just before she closes it behind her she turns to me. "I think you know me better than that."

I do.

****

I have taken to sitting in the darkened living room. I used to have a life. I used to have some measure of happiness. I used to laugh.

The phone rings, but I have neither the desire nor the inclination to talk to whoever is on the other line. My answering machine picks up.

It's Karen. This is the third time in the week since she's left that she's called just to threaten me about calling Josh. I spoke with her last time and told her that Josh was giving me next week off, and that I was going to fly to Wisconsin to see my parents. This, of course, was another lie.

I've discovered that it's very easy to lie when you no longer care about the truth. In just three weeks I have become a master in the art of deception.

Just tonight, I told Josh I couldn't work late because I had a date. It had been a long day and I had been working in very close quarters with my boss. I had to get away from him. I would have said or done anything to get away from him. He doesn't even see that anything is wrong. He can't seem to notice that our timing is off. Probably because all he sees is himself.

He doesn't see that my life is falling to pieces around me. I guess it doesn't matter, as long as I keep his life under control.

I know that before, I didn't want him to look that deep, but that was a week ago. Things have gotten worse since then. My stomach no longer holds down anything heavier than ice cream. Every time I try, I end up kneeling in front of the toilet. Now, I want him see that my life is hovering on the brink of unendurable. I want him to see, but he has to be willing to look.

When he was on the operating table, I realized that I was in love with him. This man, who was lying helpless and victimized, had made a profound impact on my life. He didn't have to hire me that first day. I must have seemed so pathetic to him -- begging for work -- begging for validation. I like to think he hired me because he saw something in me that was...special, maybe. He took me under his wing, and he never got frustrated when I asked him to explain something I didn't understand.

I can't get the memory of his open chest out of my head. I see it when I close my eyes and I see it when I dream. Sometimes in my dreams, I am there, at Rosslyn, desperately trying to hold back the flow of his life's blood. Sometimes, I even fancy that I could have prevented his getting shot in the first place. If only I had been there.

It took the sight of his chest, held open by a rib-spreader, to finally make me realize just how important Josh is to me. But that wasn't the only epiphany I had that night. There was another, and it came with such instant clarity that it rocked me to the core.

I don't who I am without Joshua Lyman.

At first, I was so happy to know he would survive that I didn't have time think about it. During his recovery, I offered him all of my support. I just wanted to love him in any way I could. In any avenue left open to me.

I have spent the last three weeks trying to figure that out. It occurs to me that things are not progressing well. Is this who I am without him? An unhappy woman who vomits lies and sits alone in a dark room? I don't want to be that woman.

I have to better. I just have to be.

The End