by A. J. Finn
The ice bucket smashes on the floor.
I’ll watch the rest of the movie.
I open my eyes, unearth the remote from beneath me. The speakers exhale organ music, and there’s Bacall, playing peekaboo over her shoulder. “You’ll be all right,” she vows. “Hold your breath, cross your fingers.” The surgery scene—Bogie doped up, specters revolving before him, an unholy carousel. “It’s in your bloodstream now.” The organ drones. “Let me in.” Agnes Moorehead, rapping at the camera lens. “Let me in.” A flame wavers—“Light?” suggests the cabbie.
Light. I turn my head, look into the Russell house. Jane is still in her living room, on her feet now, shouting silently.
I swivel in my seat. Strings, a fleet of them, the organ shrilling beneath. I can’t see who she’s shouting at, or at whom she’s shouting—the wall of the house blocks my view of the rest of the room.
“Hold your breath, cross your fingers.”
She’s really bellowing, her face gone scarlet. I spy my Nikon on the kitchen counter.
“It’s in your bloodstream now.”
I rise from the sofa, cross to the kitchen, paw the camera with one hand. Move to the window.
“Let me in. Let me in. Let me in.”
I lean into the glass, lift the camera to my eye. A blur of black, and then Jane jumps into view, soft around the edges; a twist of the lens and now she’s clear, crisp—I can even see her locket winking. Her eyes are narrowed, her mouth wide. She jabs the air with one finger—“Light?”—jabs again. A lock of hair has swung from her head, flopping against her cheek.
Just as I zoom in further, she storms to the left, out of sight.
“Hold your breath.” I turn to the television. Bacall again, almost purring. “Cross your fingers,” I say along with her. I face the window again, Nikon at my eye.
Once more Jane enters the frame—but walking slowly, strangely. Staggering. A dark patch of crimson has stained the top of her blouse; even as I watch, it spreads to her stomach. Her hands scrabble at her chest. Something slender and silver has lodged there, like a hilt.
It is a hilt.
Now the blood surges up to her throat, washes it with red. Her mouth has gone slack; her brow is creased, as though she’s confused. She grips the hilt with one hand, limply. With the other she reaches out, her finger aimed toward the window.
She’s pointing straight at me.
I drop the camera, feel it rappel down my leg, the strap snagging in my fingers.
Jane’s arm folds against the window. Her eyes are wide, pleading. She mouths something I can’t hear, can’t read. And then, as time slows to a near halt, she presses her hand to the window and keels to one side, wiping a bold smear of blood across the glass.
I’m stricken where I stand.
I can’t move.
The room is still. The world is still.
And then, as time lurches forward, I move.
I spin, shake the camera strap loose, lunge across the room, my hip butting into the kitchen table. I stumble, reach the counter, wrench the landline from its dock. Press the power button.
Nothing. Dead.
Somewhere I remember David telling me as much. It isn’t even plugged—
David.
I drop the phone and race to the basement door, yell his name, yell it, yell it. Seize the doorknob, pull hard.
Nothing.
Run to the stairs. Up, up—crashing against the wall—once—twice—round the landing, trip on the final step, half crawl to the study.
Check the desk. No phone. I swear I left it here.
Skype.
My hands jumping, I reach for the mouse, streak it over the desk. Double-click on Skype, double-click again, hear the sweep of the welcome tone, bash 911 into the dial pad.
A red triangle flashes on the screen. no emergency calls. skype is not a telephone replacement service.
“Fuck you, Skype,” I shout.
Flee the study, rush the steps, whip around the landing, crash through the bedroom door.
Near bedside table: wineglass, picture frame. Far bedside table: two books, reading glasses.
My bed—is it in my bed again? I grab the duvet with both hands, snap it hard.
The phone launches into the air like a missile.
I pounce before it lands, knock it beneath the armchair, reach for it, grip it tight in my hand, swipe it on. Tap in the passcode. It trembles. Wrong code. Tap it in again, my fingers slipping.
The home screen appears. I stab the Phone icon, stab the Keypad icon, dial 911.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“My neighbor,” I say, braking, motionless for the first time in ninety seconds. “She’s—stabbed. Oh, God. Help her.”
“Ma’am, slow down.” He’s speaking slowly, as if by example, in a languid Georgia drawl. It’s jarring. “What’s your address?”
I squeeze it from my brain, from my throat, stammering. Through the window I can see the Russells’ cheery parlor, that arc of blood smeared across their window like war paint.
He repeats the address.
“Yes. Yes.”
“And you say your neighbor was stabbed?”
“Yes. Help. She’s bleeding.”
“What?”
“I said help.” Why isn’t he helping? I gulp air, cough, gulp once more.
“Help is on the way, ma’am. I need you to calm down. Could you give me your name?”
“Anna Fox.”
“All right, Anna. What’s your neighbor’s name?”
“Jane Russell. Oh, God.”
“Are you with her now?”
“No. She’s across—she’s in the house across the park from me.”
“Anna, did . . .”
He’s pouring words in my ear like syrup—what kind of emergency dispatch service hires a slow talker?—when I feel a brush at my ankle. I look down to find Punch rubbing his flank against me.
“What?”
“Did you stab your neighbor?”
In the dark of the window I can see my mouth drop open. “No.”
“All right.”
“I looked through the window and saw her get stabbed.”
“All right. Do you know who stabbed her?”
I’m squinting through the glass, peering into the Russells’ parlor—it’s a story below me now, but I see nothing on the floor except a floral-print rug. I brace myself on my toes, strain my neck.
Still nothing.
And then it appears: a hand at the windowsill.
Creeping upward, like a soldier edging his head above the trench. I watch the fingers swipe at the glass, drag lines through the blood.
She’s still alive.
“Ma’am? Do you know who—”
But already I’m bolting from the room, the phone dropped, the cat mewling behind me.
33
The umbrella stands in its corner, cowering against the wall, as if afraid of some approaching threat. I grip the handle by the crook, cool and smooth in my damp palm.
The ambulance isn’t here, but I am, just steps away from her. Beyond these walls, outside those two doors, she helped me, came to my aid—and now there’s a blade in her chest. My psychotherapist’s oath: I must first do no harm. I will promote healing and well-being and place others’ interests above my own.
Jane is across the park, her hand trawling through blood.
I push the hall door open.
It’s thick with dark in here as I cross to the door. I snap the latch and flick the umbrella spring, feel it huff air as it blossoms in the blackness; the tips of its spokes catch against the wall, drag there, tiny claws.
One. Two.
I set my hand on the knob.
Three.
I twist.
Four.
I stand there, the brass cold in my fist.
I can’t move.
I can feel the outside trying to get in—isn’t that how Lizzie put it? It’s swelling against the door, bulging its muscle
s, battering the wood; I hear its breath, its nostrils steaming, its teeth grinding. It will trample me; it will tear me; it will devour me.
I press my head to the door, exhale. One. Two. Three. Four.
The street is a canyon, deep and broad. It’s too exposed. I’ll never make it.
She’s steps away. Across the park.
Across the park.
I retreat from the hall, towing the umbrella in my wake, and move into the kitchen. There it is, right by the dishwasher: the side door, leading directly to the park. Locked for almost a year now. I’ve placed a recycling bin in front of it, bottle necks poking from its mouth like broken teeth.
I push the bin aside—a chorus of chinking glass from within—and flip the lock.
But what if the door closes behind me? What if I can’t get back in? I glance at the key dangling on the hook beside the jamb. Slip it off, drop it into the pocket of my robe.
I swivel the umbrella ahead of me—my secret weapon; my sword and my shield—and lean over to press my hand to the knob. I turn it.
I push.
Air breaks against me, cold and sharp. I close my eyes.
Stillness. Darkness.
One. Two.
Three.
Four.
I step outside.
34
My foot misses the first step altogether, falling hard on the second, so that I wobble into the dark, the umbrella wobbling before me. The other foot trips after it, skitters down, the back of my calf scraping the steps, until I spill onto the grass.
I crush my eyes shut. My head brushes against the canopy of the umbrella. It’s encasing me like a tent.
Huddled there, I stretch my arm back along the steps, up, up, up, tiptoeing one finger ahead of the other, until I can feel the top step. I peek. There’s the door flung open, the kitchen glowing gold. I reach for it, as though I could snag my fingers in the light, tug it toward me.
She’s dying over there.
I turn my head back to the umbrella. Four squares of black, four lines of white.
Pressing my hand against the rough brick of the steps, I haul myself to my feet, up, up, up.
I hear branches creaking overhead, take tiny sips of cold air. I’d forgotten cold air.
And—one, two, three, four—I begin to walk. I’m unsteady, like a drunk. I am drunk, I remember.
One, two, three, four.
* * *
During the third year of my residency, I met a child who, following surgery for epilepsy, manifested a curious set of behaviors. Prior to her lobectomy, she was by all accounts a happy ten-year-old, albeit one prone to severe epileptic episodes (“epilepisodes,” someone quipped); afterward, she withdrew from her family, ignored her younger brother, shriveled at her parents’ touch.
Initially her teachers suspected abuse, but then someone observed how much friendlier the girl had become toward people she barely knew, people she didn’t know—she would fling her arms around her doctors, take the hands of passersby, chat with saleswomen as though they were old pals. And all the while her loved ones—her former loved ones—shivered in the cold.
We never determined the cause. But we termed the result selective emotional detachment. I wonder where she is now; I wonder what her family is doing.
I think of that little girl, her warmth toward strangers, her affinity for the unknown, as I ford the park, to the rescue of a woman I’ve met twice.
And even as I think it, the umbrella bumps against something, and I stop in my tracks.
It’s a bench.
It’s the bench, the only one in the park, a shabby little wooden rig with curlicue arms and an in-memoriam plaque bolted to the back. I used to watch Ed and Olivia sit here, from my aerie atop the house; he’d idle over a tablet, she’d thumb through a book, and then they’d swap. “Are you enjoying your children’s literature?” I’d ask him later.
“Expelliarmus,” he’d say.
The tip of the umbrella has caught between the planks of the seat. Gently I pry it loose—and then I realize, or rather remember:
The Russell house doesn’t have a door leading to the park. There’s no way to enter except by the street.
I haven’t thought this through.
One. Two. Three. Four.
I’m in the middle of a quarter-acre park, with only nylon and cotton for armor, traveling to the home of a woman who’s been stabbed.
I hear the night growl. I feel it circle my lungs, lick its lips.
I can do this, I think as my knees go slack. Come on: up, up, up. One, two, three, four.
I falter forward—a tiny step, but a step. I watch my feet, the grass springing up around my slippers. I will promote healing and well-being.
Now the night has my heart in its claws. It’s squeezing. I’ll burst. I’m going to burst.
And I will place others’ interests above my own.
Jane, I’m coming. I drag my other foot ahead, my body sinking, sinking. One, two, three, four.
Sirens whine in the distance, like mourners at a wake. Blood-red light floods the bowl of the umbrella. Before I can stop myself, I twist toward the noise.
Wind howls. Headlights blind me.
One-two-three—
Friday, November 5
35
“I guess we should have locked the door,” Ed mumbled after she fled into the hall.
I turned to him. “What were you expecting?”
“I didn’t—”
“What did you think would happen? What did I say would happen?”
Without waiting for an answer, I left the room. Ed’s footsteps followed me, soft on the carpet.
In the lobby, Marie had emerged from behind her desk. “You folks okay?” she asked, frowning.
“No,” I replied, just as Ed said, “Fine.”
Olivia was lodged in an armchair beside the hearth, her face rinsed with tears, filmy in the firelight. Ed and I crouched on either side of her. The flames snapped at my back.
“Livvy,” Ed began.
“No,” she answered, rattling her head back and forth.
He tried again, softer. “Livvy.”
“Fuck you,” she shrieked.
We both recoiled; I nearly edged into the grate. Marie had retreated behind her desk and was doing her best to ignore us folks.
“Where did you hear that word?” I asked.
“Anna,” said Ed.
“It wasn’t from me.”
“That’s not the point.”
He was right. “Pumpkin,” I said, smoothing her hair; she shook her head again, buried her face in a cushion. “Pumpkin.”
Ed placed his hand on hers. She swatted it away.
He looked at me, helpless.
A child is crying in your office. What do you do? First pediatric psych course, first day, first ten minutes. Answer: You let them cry it out. You listen, of course, and you seek to understand, and you offer consolation, and you encourage them to breathe deeply—but you let them cry it out.
“Take a breath, pumpkin,” I murmured, cupping her scalp in my palm.
She choked, spluttered.
A moment drifted past. The room felt cold; the flames shivered in the fireplace behind me. Then she spoke into the cushion.
“What?” Ed asked.
Lifting her head, her cheeks smeared, Olivia addressed the window. “I want to go home.”
I watched her face, her quaking lip, her streaming nose; and then I watched Ed, the creases in his forehead, the hollows beneath his eyes.
Did I do this to us?
Snow beyond the window. I watched it fall, saw the three of us collected in the glass: my husband and my daughter and me, huddled by the fire together.
A brief silence.
I stood, walked over to the desk. Marie looked up and shaped her lips into a tight smile. I smiled back.
“The storm,” I began.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Is it . . . how close is it? Is it safe to drive?”
She frowned, rattled her fingers over her keyboard. “Heavy snowfall isn’t due for another couple of hours,” she said. “But—”
“Then could we—” I interrupted her. “Sorry.”
“I was just saying that winter storms are tough to predict.” She glanced over my shoulder. “Are you folks wanting to leave?”
I turned, looked at Olivia in the armchair, Ed crouching beside her. “I think we are.”
“In that case,” said Marie, “I’d say now’s the time to go.”
I nodded. “Could we get the bill, please?”
She said something in reply, but all I heard was the skirling wind, the crackle of flames.
36
The crackle of an overstarched pillowcase.
Footfalls nearby.
Then quiet—but a strange quiet, a different quality of quiet.
My eyes spring open.
I’m on my side, looking at a radiator.
And above the radiator, a window.
And outside the window, brickwork, the zigzag of a fire escape, the boxy rumps of AC units.
Another building.
I’m in a twin bed, sheathed in tucked-tight sheets. I twist, sit up.
I back into the pillow, telescope the room. It’s small, plainly furnished—barely furnished, really: a plastic chair against one wall, a walnut table beside the bed, a pale-pink tissue box on the table. A table lamp. A slim vase, empty. Dull linoleum floor. A door across from me, closed, frosted panel. Overhead, a quilt of stucco and fluorescents—
My fingers crumple the bedding.
Now it begins.
The far wall slides away, receding; the door within it shrinks. I look to the walls on either side of me, watch them ebb from each other. The ceiling shudders, creaks, peels off like a sardine tin, like a roof rent by a hurricane. The air goes with it, whipping from my lungs. The floor rumbles. The bed trembles.
Here I lie, on this heaving mattress, in this scalped room, with nothing to breathe. I’m drowning in the bed, dying in the bed.
“Help,” I shout, only it’s a whisper, creeping through my throat on tiptoe, smearing itself across my tongue. “He-elp,” I try again; this time my teeth bite into it, sparks raining from my mouth as though I’ve chewed a live wire, and my voice catches like a fuse, explodes.
