The Possessions

by Sara Flannery Murphy

  I remember Henry before we were ever together. A party. He told me about the death of a classmate when he was a child. For months afterward, he said, strangers would randomly remind him of this boy. A child who’d never seemed noteworthy to Henry before, now multiplied in faces in the crowd.

  He must be haunted by me. These past eighteen months populated by sudden flashes, swift and cutting. A black-haired girl at a restaurant; a woman with my slim back and long neck sitting in a parked car. My laugh rising disembodied from a group of strangers. He’s grown used to it, I’m sure. He knows how to hide these moments from other people. But now I’m looking right at him, daring him to see me.

  Henry turns off the overhead light. The blue lamplight spreads against the wall like a patch of frost on a windowpane.

  “They’re not part of this,” he says. “Come with me. Leave them alone.”

  I follow Henry out of the nursery, down the stairs. He guides me into the living room. The curtains are drawn over the window, backlit by the street lamp. From this angle, the shadows of the snowflakes lie in an uneven pattern across the fabric.

  “So.” He faces me, arms coiled over his chest. “You’re in my house in the middle of the night. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t put an end to this right now.”

  “Have you told your wife?” I ask.

  “Told her—?”

  “You’ve been lying all this time.”

  Henry doesn’t speak for a long moment. The heavy light slices his face in half. One eye exposed wetly, the other sunk deep in shadows. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I retreat then, letting her take over. As I break apart, her uncertainty moves through the cracks. I feel her muscles seize, her arms crossing over her chest, as she looks around and understands where she is.

  Henry and I examine each other. Being left alone in the Damsons’ house is a shock. Henry seems to grow assured, taking up more space. I shrink; Sylvia and Henry were two animals circling each other. In contrast, I’m small, cornered by a larger beast.

  “What’s it going to take to get you to stay away?” Henry asks me. “Am I going to be looking over my shoulder every day now? Every night?”

  “Mr. Damson,” I say, “I’m afraid I don’t—”

  “Tell me something,” he says. “Are you from that place?”

  “What place?” A useless bid for more time.

  “It was on the news a while back,” Henry says. “Contacting the dead. You’re one of them?”

  My denial wilts in my throat.

  “You’ve been lying from the start. You got to Viv, but I never trusted you,” he says. “Be honest for once.”

  “Yes,” I say. An ache of exhaustion pulls at the back of my eyes. “Yes, I’m from the Elysian Society.”

  Henry’s gaze is tinted with both fear and disgust now. “What is he doing with her?”

  “It shouldn’t matter to you,” I say. “You won’t see me again. Patrick and I are leaving the city together.”

  “Going where?” he asks. And then, more quietly but more urgently: “Going as who?”

  “All we want is a new start,” I say. “Surely you can understand that.”

  “Sylvia’s gone.” We’re standing so close; I catch the sourness of Henry’s interrupted sleep. “She’s not coming back. What you’re doing with him isn’t a new start. It’s sick.”

  “You’re getting exactly what you want,” I say. “Your family. Your job, your reputation. You’ll never have to worry about Patrick again.”

  “And what are you getting out of this?” Henry asks. “Whoever you are. Lucy. What are you really getting out of this, Lucy? The chance to be someone’s dead wife?” The repulsion in his voice is wet and bitter. “Something’s wrong with you. You can’t be with Patrick as yourself because there’s nothing there.” He flicks his fingers against my forehead, hard; the pain rings through me. “You need Sylvia to be anybody. To be a whole person. Is that it?”

  I don’t answer.

  “Or is it something else?” he says, almost to himself.

  I stare at him, lips pressed together. I’m still wearing only my thin nightgown, the silky material worn thin and drab. It slips off my shoulder.

  “Henry.” His name floats down to us from the top of the stairs and we both turn. “What’s happening?” Viv stands high above us. She clutches her bathrobe closed, fist at her throat, the fabric ruffled into a bouquet—an old-womanly gesture. Her downturned face is lotion-greasy, eyes wide and fearful. “Who is that?”

  “Go back to bed,” he calls up to her. “Don’t worry.” To me, he adds, “You need to get out.” Henry opens the door wider, allowing me to pass through.

  I step out into the hugeness of the night. “Promise you won’t tell Patrick I was here.”

  “Right now, I want to forget this ever happened,” he says, low enough that Viv can’t hear us. “If Patrick wants to play some twisted game with you, turn you into his wife, that’s his business.” Henry starts to close the door. “That’s what he was doing with Sylvia already.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  We meet at a park. On this dazzling, heat-doused evening, the park swarms with bodies, everyone still working out the caged restlessness left behind by the long winter. I arrive early to wait for him, spreading a blanket on the grass. I would feel conspicuous, sitting alone, but I’ve arranged two wineglasses. When strangers’ eyes graze over the blanket, they acknowledge that second glass and seem satisfied. As if a suggestion of someone else is enough to legitimize me.

  Teenagers roam in packs, flirting aggressively, or sprawl out, as entangled as if they’re alone in the universe. Twenty-something couples walk arm in arm, trying on decorous adulthood like costumes; a bride moves down the sidewalks with her photographer, trailed by shuffling bridesmaids. Oblivious parents run after their children. Older couples pick their way through the crowds, steady markers, like lines on a map cutting through the wilderness.

  When he arrives, I watch him register and dismiss woman after woman until his eyes land on me. His whole face comes alive with a smile. He lifts a hand.

  When he sits next to me, the sun behind him, I take in the muscles visible in his forearms. He’s freshly shaven, smelling like laundry detergent and spicy cologne. Already, he looks fuller.

  I’m unprepared for what I feel. In a way, I needed my desire to stem from Sylvia. I needed it to be inherited, passed on and well-worn. It’s a shock to be alone with this all-consuming thing, even more shocking to realize that it originated from me all along.

  Then Patrick reaches across, lays his hand warm and light on my thigh. I relax again. “Will you miss this place?” Patrick asks when we’re drinking.

  It’s champagne; the bubbles sizzle down my throat. “Maybe,” I say. “In a way.”

  A couple walks so close to us that the strap of her sandal catches on the edge of our picnic blanket, tugs it lightly.

  “You look wonderful today,” he says.

  I tuck my hair behind my ear, murmuring a protest. I’ve worn a new shade of lipstick, streaking each color on the back of my hand in the drugstore and then holding my hand up against my cheek. A rosy nude that brings out my best features. Full mouth, strong nose.

  “I dreamed about you last night,” Patrick says.

  Looking up, I laugh. It’s such a vulnerably tender thing to say, offered without apology.

  “I was in our bedroom, in the morning, and I went to the window. You were there, in the yard. You weren’t doing anything. Not that I can remember. It was more a sensation. This huge sense of—” He hesitates. “Peacefulness. Everything right with the world.”

  I consider this, taking a burning sip of my drink.

  “You have that quality,” Patrick says. He lifts his glass to me, a little toast. The bubbles have settled, shifting and sparkling, along one edge.

  “That’s very kind,” I say.

  “I mean it. It’s hard to be open to other people,” he says. “The fact that you
are—well, it’s a strength.”

  A group of girls pass us, hair long and streaked with sunshine, dresses floating above the tops of their thighs. One of them turns her head toward Patrick, her eyes resting on him as if I’m not here. When she shifts her gaze to me, she smirks as if she’s figured something out.

  “Patrick,” I say.

  He must catch something in my face. “What?”

  Everything I could say to him is right there. Not just on my tongue but down my throat, inside me, as if I’ve been hollowed out to hold what I feel for him. But I can’t find the words.

  “Excuse me.”

  We both turn our heads, attentive and startled. A girl with hair colored pink at the ends, as if she’s trailed her hair in wet paint, stands at the edge of the blanket. Her eyes are big and blank, and I think she’s going to accuse us. There’s something wrong with you two. Why are you pretending to be like the rest of us?

  Who do you think you’re fooling?

  “Would you be interested in a photo?” the girl asks. A bag is slung around her chest, and she reaches into it now, pulling out a chunky camera. “Five bucks. It’s a great souvenir.”

  “Do you have a license for this?” Patrick asks.

  I think he’s serious, but the girl laughs, throwing her head back. Looking at him, I see the responding smile on Patrick’s face, friendly and indulgent. “We’d love one,” he says.

  “All right, lovebirds,” the girl says, and she holds up a camera. “Ready? Say cheese.”

  Patrick shifts close enough that our hips press together. He slips his arm around my waist, pulls my body in close to his. His cheek hovering just next to mine. I can feel the light humidity of his sweat, the movement of his muscles against me.

  The camera gives off a weak snap of light, cold against the lavishness of the sunlight. After a second, a slim Polaroid shoots out one side of the camera and hovers like an extended wing.

  She passes the photo to me. “You’re a cute couple.”

  I stare at the couple captured inside the photo. I’m surprised: we’re not mismatched. We’re a cohesive pair, each picking up details in the other. The glints of deep gold in his eyes, the slope of my shoulder against his. We tilt our faces toward each other.

  I imagine Sylvia looking at this image. If she’d experienced some lightning bolt of prescience one evening two years ago. Maybe she would have looked at us and thought: How happy they are. The uncomplicated happiness she wanted for her own marriage. All our rough edges flattened into a still and perfect moment.

  We arrive home clinging to each other, punch-drunk from our time together. The house burns with the late afternoon that punctures through the windows. This is what I’ve been waiting for. My life’s been thrown wide open all over again, revealing a dizzying blankness. It’s as if I’ve been picking my way through a dark tunnel, only the path in front of me illuminated, and now I finally can see everywhere. See everything. It hurts my eyes.

  “You’re OK?” Patrick touches my cheek.

  “I was thinking—” I say, and stop. Over his shoulder, a detail pulls at my attention. The living room, visible through the kitchen’s far entrance, lies bare. A stretch of beige marked with paler squares. He’s removed the framed photographs of Sylvia. Without her smile repeating across the room, the wall is unmoored.

  “Edie?” he prompts.

  “It’s not too late to have a child,” I say.

  Patrick’s brows flinch downward. “You mean it?”

  I remember the book I found in the upstairs room, locked away. “I want to do this for you.” And then add, realizing how much it sounds like an afterthought: “For us.”

  On the porch, later, I stand with Patrick. In the evening light, the creased wrinkles at the edges of his eyes stand out. “Your hair,” he says.

  I touch my hair without thinking.

  “It’s glowing,” he says.

  In my peripheral vision, the sun catches hot in the strands. I think of Sylvia’s black hair. “I could make it darker,” I say.

  “Darker?”

  “If you wanted.”

  “No, I don’t want that,” Patrick says, stepping closer. He slides his hand into the hair at the base of my skull, weaving his fingers in deep. I feel the shift of him against my scalp.

  Later, I take a final walk through the apartment. I’m trying to leave everything clean, as if I’m only departing for a vacation and planning to walk back into this space. The TV set is unplugged, floors vacuumed. I’ve wiped away the nests of dust and insect husks inside the light fixtures. I’ve been sleeping on top of my bedspread, not disturbing the freshly washed sheets.

  I imagine the landlord moving through the rooms when it’s clear I’m not returning, assessing the leftovers of my time here. Later, he’ll tell his wife that he can’t believe I stayed here for four years. He can barely tell anyone lived here at all.

  The Braddocks’ photos are still scattered through my bedroom. I collect them into a shoebox, not sure what I’ll do with them in our new life. I can’t abandon them, these years and years of the Braddocks’ history.

  As I’m collecting the photos from the corners of my life, something nags at me. I can’t find the photograph from the lake. The one of Henry and Sylvia. I leaf through the images and find only Sylvia and Patrick, the Damsons an occasional and minor backdrop to their happiness.

  I do find the card Detective Rogalski gave me. It lies at the bottom of a stack of unopened mail; I’m about to throw it away, rip it into shreds and deposit it neatly with the other trash. Instead, I dial, not letting myself think about what I’m doing.

  “Hello?” Bored, impatient already.

  “May I speak to Detective Rogalski?” I ask.

  “Speaking.”

  “This is the woman you met with, at the Elysian Society. Some time ago.” I wait for him to acknowledge this, but he’s silent. “Maybe it doesn’t matter anymore,” I continue, “but I want you to know that Laura Holmes worked at the Elysian Society. She went by the name of Thisbe.”

  A stretch of silence. I think he’s hung up on me, and I’m disappointed and relieved at the same time. Just as I predicted to Ana, just as Mrs. Renard warned me, he sees this as a joke. Nothing I say holds any weight in the world of the living, not anymore.

  But then he exhales, the sigh of a disappointed parent. “Well, you took your time,” he says. “You couldn’t have told me about this a month ago?”

  “I can give you an address,” I say. “An apartment on Sycamore, owned by Mrs. Renard. Her workers stay there sometimes. That might be why you haven’t found any record of Laura Holmes living in the city.”

  Again, he doesn’t answer for so long that I’m sure I’ve lost him.

  “I’m telling you this because Laura’s death involved the Elysian Society,” I say. “It wasn’t a coincidence that she worked there. You should talk to Mrs. Renard about what happened.”

  “You’d be willing to testify about this?” he asks. “Come down to the station so I can get an official statement?”

  Panic needles under my ribs. In my mind, the station is a sterile territory, flat and benignly hostile. A place where I’d walk in and immediately be exposed for who I really am. No false name. No Elysian Society disguise. My whole history trailing behind me.

  “If it’s all the same, I want to stay anonymous,” I say.

  Rogalski laughs softly. “No real surprise there, I guess.”

  By tomorrow, I remind myself, I’ll be long gone. I’ll leave no trace of myself behind.

  “Well,” he says at last, “I’ll see what I can do. But it could be too little, too late. It’s important to be up front right away, young lady. You can’t assume you’ll get a second chance.”

  “I understand that,” I say. “Thank you.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  My last day begins with soft, clean sunlight filling every room. I walk through the space, hesitating over her belongings. The book Patrick gave me to finish for her. Earrings and pe
rfume. So many tiny pieces of Sylvia have gravitated to me.

  I discard my clients’ old files. Their neatly typed stories, the photographs of weddings, holidays, family reunions. I release them, boxful by boxful, into the dumpster outside the complex. At the end, I add my white Elysian Society dresses, watching them drift to the grime.

  I arrive outside Patrick’s house as the sky burns into sunset. In the trunk, I’ve packed everything I care to bring. So few items that they rattle in their solitary box. A coffee mug with a watercolor lily peeling off one side; a framed postcard of a woman in an orange dress. A retroactive attempt to give these past five years some kind of meaning.

  On my mouth, I wear Sylvia’s deep and vibrant lipstick.

  The Braddocks’ house has changed. It’s smaller, or thinner. Less substantial. Although the house has been creeping into disrepair for months now, the shingles tattered and dislodged like missing teeth, the windows cloudy, it looks abandoned for the first time this evening.

  My heart hurts at the idea of leaving their home behind. The backyard that I could have trimmed and nurtured, ruthlessly slicing the weeds to make room for new blossoms. The shelves of books I could have finished or reread on Sylvia’s behalf. The bed I could have filled.

  I ring the doorbell, pressing my lips together. Sylvia must have had her own set of memories attached to this shade of lipstick. Now her memories share space with my own. Seeing Patrick in the doorway of Room 12. Patrick’s fingers and mouth, urgent between my legs, coaxing me up into myself from where I’d been hiding.

  The unlocked door swings open at my touch. The room beyond is so fierce with evening light that I can’t make anything out.

  “Patrick?”

  I step into the Braddocks’ home, closing the door behind me. Then I instinctively lock it. I call his name again. No answer. The house has an underwater stillness to it.

  A dull glint on an end table catches my eye. I pick it up. Patrick’s wedding ring. It’s smaller than I expected. On his hand, the band has always seemed heavy enough to root him here. I’m surprised at its actual weightlessness. I turn the cold metal over and over in my palm.