by Lydia Millet
“It’s like Doug,” said Will. “Solly’s apartment building has a doorman to watch over it, right? But we don’t have Doug in my house so we’re using this little guy right here.” He rested his hand on the console.
She’d loved Doorman Doug, of course, who brought her puzzle books that featured the Mario Brothers, with a few of their yellowing pages scrawled over long ago by his now-teenage sons. Lena did not prefer the Mario Brothers. They were strangers to her.
But she liked Will’s explanation and named the alarm console New Doug.
ON OUR FOURTH afternoon back in Maine, while Will was off at the library, Lena wanted a nap; I was tired too so I lay down beside her on the double bed in Will’s guest room, which he’d given her for our time here. The walls, covered in antique wallpaper of faded but regal-looking lions, were festooned with her taped-up decorations, drawings she’d done of fairies and princesses, photos of Kay, Faneesha, Solly, herself standing with both Lindas beside her snow effigy, its head already half-melted.
I dozed off not long after she did and was only woken by a wrong smell. It was familiar, but still I took a minute to put a name to it: smoke. And it was too warm in the room, I realized—sweat had beaded on my forehead and under my arms.
Had I left something on the stove, maybe a kettle? I left Lena sleeping and started down the stairs.
But there was smoke at the bottom, enough of it to hide the view below, and a block of hot air hit me. I turned around again to get Lena—and where was my phone? Downstairs, damn it, somewhere past the smoke, I’d left it charging down there. Will’s landline was on the first floor too.
I shook her awake and bundled her into a thick sweater and we ran to the bedroom where Will and I slept, which had French doors that opened onto a balcony. I wrenched the doors open and stepped out onto the rickety wooden platform, which hung over the back of the house. The view was of the large and unkempt yard, brown grass mostly covered in thin patches of ice and crusts of snow. At the back of it were trees, over which rooftops were faintly visible, but not close enough to yell at.
Most of the neighbors were probably at work, I thought, since it was the middle of a weekday.
“Honey, I think we have to climb down,” I said.
“It’s too slippery!” cried Lena, her voice squeaking. She touched the ice along the wooden rail.
But Lena’s a much better climber than I am, a climber who shimmies up to the canopy of trees and freely climbs rock faces I’d never try, and we got out safely, she first, me after, though I fell the last couple of feet. I twisted my ankle, scraped my elbows a bit. We went around to the front yard and still saw no fire, just smoke leaking out the crack at the bottom of the front door. We ran next door, knocking and waiting, and just as the neighbor’s door opened we watched the roof cave in.
THE HOUSE ISN’T a total loss. A fire engine pulled up not long after the neighbor called 911, siren shrieking, and we stood by shivering as the firemen plied the hoses, stood with our eyes smarting as smoke billowed out of a broken front window.
I picked up Lena and held her on my hip the whole time—she’s old for holding like that, but still light at forty-some pounds. She didn’t cry. She was openmouthed but not outwardly frightened.
Other than the section of roof that collapsed, only the kitchen and living room are badly damaged. Mostly they’re waterlogged. Will’s homeowner’s insurance will cover the repairs, but those repairs will take a while. It was an electrical fire, the cops told us when we met with them at the station. There’s no evidence of arson, they said.
I assumed it was Ned, somehow this too was Ned’s doing. But the firemen shrugged and said the house is old, its wiring is pre-code. One of them brought me an informational brochure, nodding helpfully as though the handout would fully explain everything.
On the front it has a picture of a fifties-style couple in their kitchen—she beside the stove, he sitting straight-backed at the table, wearing a suit and tie, with a cup of coffee and a plate of eggs in front of him. The man and woman are both slim and attractive, and smile at each other in a satisfied fashion. But sticking through the open door behind their backs, as though to peer in and wave, are plump, decorative tongues of flame, apparently unseen.
Each year, household wiring and lighting cause an estimated average of 32,000 home fires in the United States. On average, these fires result in 950 injuries and 220 deaths. They cause more than $670 million in property damage.
Even the insurance forensics guys who came to inspect the house shook their heads as though the fire had been inevitable—we’d been asking for it by being so brash as to live in the house at all.
So it’s back to The Wind and Pines, where Don has set us up with two adjoining rooms close to the lobby. He keeps the security system updated since the kidnapping: he gave himself a crash course in the software after it happened. So we’re still surveilled, and the homeowners’ insurance is paying for our rooms until the repairs are done.
There are other motels in driving distance, of course, but Don is Will’s friend and Lena’s so fond of him, and besides the Lindas are still here, the sole holdouts of the group, still setting out on their beachcombing walks every morning, still not ready to part ways from each other and go home.
In the end, coming back here, it seems we didn’t have much choice.
WE ALL ATE in the motel café tonight, Will and Don and the Lindas and Lena and I. Somehow it felt like we were trying too hard to have a regular meal. No one from town was there; the café’s first emptiness had returned.
Don and I were left alone together after dinner, when the Lindas went to show Lena some video clips of kittens who were friends with tortoises; Will headed back to our rooms to unpack. We’d maybe had a couple too many glasses of wine, Don and I. Or at least I had. Don was drinking whiskey.
“At first, when it began,” he said, “I did worry. I knew there were antagonists who might also be attracted, antagonists like your husband. We’re a magnet for them.”
“You mean—a magnet? How?” I asked.
“Some people, historically, have heard the voice when—let’s say when danger is already near. But after a while, this year, I relaxed my vigilance because no one showed up. No one to worry about. And then they did. I’m sorry I wasn’t better prepared, Anna.”
“You did your best,” I said.
We sat in silence, likely both wondering if that was true.
“Kay sent you some emails,” said Don after a minute. “Didn’t she?”
“She was so upset. And with her diagnosis—I didn’t know what to make of them,” I said.
“You can credit them. She knew,” said Don softly.
I met his gaze for a moment, but there was something too plain or too frank there and I had to look away.
“She knows,” I corrected, a little halfhearted.
“If you pay attention to the culture,” said Don, “you can see these threads of recognition. There are interferences and smokescreens all over, but the threads are perceptible if you know where to find them. Kay was right. And she’s sick, yes. She suffers from an illness of long standing. She’s struggled very hard against it. But she also has rare insight. These years are decisive, Anna. We’re in the midst of a great acceleration and a great implosion. These years are our last chance.”
I sat there sipping my wine and wondering if Don was, finally, a crank. I think like that when bold pronouncements are made; I wonder if both sides are nothing but cranks, with one simply more powerful than the other. Ned’s Bible-thumping friends think they’re right and all others are wrong—their powerful fear of other groups that turns to hatred and plays into the hands of the profiteers. But the profiteers themselves, with their millions of tentacles sunk deep into every crack in the earth, don’t give a shit about being right. They’re powerful. When you have enough power, right or wrong is for kids. Then there’s Don, with just us, this small crowd of overeducated, confused liberals who also believe the other side is dead wr
ong, his small stable of adherents to the Hearing Voices Movement.
“No,” Don said into the silence.
I guess I’d spoken out loud, though I could have sworn I hadn’t. But I was drunk enough not to worry about it.
I probably still am.
And I did know what he was talking about, I knew what he meant by last chance. He meant what Kay had written to me in her rambling and half-coherent email. He meant the world that had evolved over millions of years, the mass of living things through which all forms of intelligence cycle, through which a billion variations move and express themselves, the ark of creation over eras and eons. He meant the spirit and expression of all creatures and all people, their cultures and tongues and arts and musics, from the vaunted to the unknown; he meant what was organic and alive, the broad, branching tree of evolution that was history and biology and all kinds of astonishing bodies full of ancient knowledge.
He meant that it was on its way out.
THE PUSH IN FRONT of the subway train, all four tires going out on a fast road, the house fire while we were fast asleep—they seem too multiple for sheer coincidence, but they don’t add up to an understandable pattern. Also, after the subway push someone had grabbed me and pulled me back. That was the first attempt, if I want to see it that way. The second: our tires went out on the Interstate, but in the end we hit no other cars—not the car so close on our left, not the dinged-up, rusting gray guardrail on the right. And the third: Will’s house burning. But I woke up and I smelled the smoke, and ten minutes later Lena and I were standing safely outside in the snow, watching an empty building burn.
Will barely believed in the fire when I called him at work. He’s seemed to be in a mild state of shock ever since, a man who’s been pushed too far: many of his dear old books were destroyed, all the books on his living room shelves.
I want to tell him: Really, Will. You don’t have to be in this with me. I’m grateful. And I don’t know the difference anymore between gratitude and love. But I’m willing to cut you loose.
I know he wouldn’t go.
I wonder what’s more important, the fact that all these events occurred in the first place or the fact that they were only close calls, that in each case none of us have succumbed.
So far.
Since the fire I’m obsessed with when the next “accident” will occur, when the new onslaught will begin.
The subway episode was ten days ago. The car accident was less than a week. The fire was the day before yesterday. They fall closer together now.
I lie awake thinking of Lena, of what will become of her if something happens to me, or if she is also a target. She was there two out of three times, after all. I harbor wild thoughts, such as: Maybe I should have fallen in front of the subway train, because at least then I was alone. At least she might be safe right now. But I fear what would become of her if I die, so there’s cold comfort there.
I lie awake worrying about Ned having custody. It’s Solly I’d want to raise her, I guess, but since Ned and I aren’t even divorced I’m pretty sure there’s no way to legally exclude him. If he wanted guardianship, regardless of his craven reasons, he would get it. And I lie awake berating myself for my lack of leverage. I’ve brought this down on our heads, but I cast bitterness in Ned’s direction too. I blame myself but I also know hatred.
I never knew it before him.
I TOLD WILL I was going to turn in with Lena last night, that I was exhausted—because I was—and then I lay in bed wearing Lena’s earphones, which are large and shiny plastic discs in the shape of monkey faces. I thought of what Don had said to me, what Kay had written, of how I’d seen a city crumble beneath a cloud of dust.
Lena rolled away from me as I prepared to say Goodbye to Stress, and before long fell asleep clutching her duck.
The images didn’t feel like a dream. I was aware of the room as I lay there, the shape of the TV cabinet, the bathroom door slightly ajar, the mirror on the dresser showing glints in the dark. I lay in an indoor twilight holding those dim motel-room shapes in front of me as I began to sink under. Did I keep my eyes open?
Into the dark room came a thin, stooped man. My impulse was to fling my body over Lena, shielding her and keeping her safe with me forever. But I couldn’t move.
The thin man turned to look at me, and I recognized him. With his bloodshot eyes and tobacco-stained mouth, his gray, grubby mechanic’s workshirt with the franchise logo on the pocket, I recognized him instantly: B.Q.
I felt repulsion, then fear; I knew I couldn’t turn onto my side or cover her with my arms, I knew I had to lie just as I was, belly up and exposed. And she was exposed beside me. That was the worst of it.
But next I understood he was a weak and broken person. He had never been a threat to us. He worked for Beefy John, that was all—he drew a paycheck.
“She told you herself,” he said sadly. “But you didn’t listen, Mrs. Mrs., she sent me with a message because she can’t bring it. She can’t say anything anymore. So here it is. True language is the deep magic. As old as time. God of the hills and water. God of the sun and trees.”
He stood at the foot of the bed looking down at Lena, and as he reached out toward her I felt I had to stop him—but instead of touching her he swooped farther down and grabbed something else: Hurt Sheep, which had fallen off the bed and onto the floor.
He picked up the stuffed animal and kept on walking across the motel room, headed toward the window now, where he stood and drew the drapes open.
In the night sky there was a deep-blue light, a kind of royal blue out over the ocean, and stars twinkled in it, the four-pointed stars you might see in paintings. They made me think of the three kings, of the Nativity.
I turned my head and watched him leave by the window. After a couple of seconds I could see quite well, almost as though I was standing at the window myself. He walked out through the glass and into the air and kept going, the sheep tucked under one arm, to where Kay waited, standing on the furling crest of a wave.
“HEY. MAMA. WHERE’S Hurt Sheep?” asked Lena in the morning. “Hurt Sheep was right exactly here!”
“Maybe under the bed. There’s lots of space down there. Remember to check beneath things, when you’re looking,” I said, brushing my teeth.
Later I helped her and we looked everywhere.
No, I thought, no no no. Come on now.
“Maybe she’s gone. Oh! Yeah. I guess she went with Kay,” said Lena, and shrugged, cocking her head.
“What do you mean, love?”
“It’s a good place for Hurt Sheep. That’s OK, Mom. She went with Kay. I told you before. Remember? In the boat, to the white castle.”
We are sending this message to our daughter Kay’s friends, her fellow medical professionals and students, and others who knew her. This is to let you know with our deep sadness, that in the evening of this past Friday, we authorized the medical staff of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, to remove, Kay from her ventilator and other support equipment. This was the most difficult decision, a parent can ever make, but as she left a “Living Will” document on her Computer, we know for certain, that it is what she wished.
Please do not reply to this Email, because neither Kay’s father, nor I, will continue to use Kay’s Email address, which we would view as a violation, of her personal privacy. We used it only to access her many Contacts, which we could not find, in another way. Neither of us uses an Email, and this is the only time, we will send a message with Kay’s Email Account. However, regular mail can be sent to us at the address below.
Also below, is listed a charity that was close to Kay’s heart, for any gifts made in her memory.
Our deepest thanks to all of you for your visits, cards, flowers, and for the love, you also held for our beloved daughter.
10
I WASN’T MYSELF, BUT THE IMAGE OF ME
IT’S LATER NOW—MUCH, MUCH LATER.
I was in the shower one evening before Lena’s bedtime, just af
ter Kay’s death. One of the two rooms we were renting off the lobby—the room that used to be Burke and Gabe’s—had a shower curtain in its small bathroom that Lena had pointed out right away. Where our old curtain had borne a pattern of blue flowers, this one had golden sheaves of wheat repeating on a background of creamy white.
I remember noticing, as I stood there letting the water drum down onto my shoulders, the cleanness and freshness of this new shower curtain with its sheaves of wheat. I noticed the sparkling-white quality of the small tiles on the shower walls, how they contrasted with the worn and grimy tiles of our previous motel-room shower stall, frankly a sorry bathroom feature. We were living the high life now, I recall saying to myself.
I washed my hair with plenty of shampoo. I saw no need to rush, since Lena was safe in the room next door with Will, reading to him from her bedtime books. I’d just rinsed out the lather and was looking around for my razor—had I left it on the sink counter?—when I felt a scratch at my ankle and glanced down to see a thin trickle of blood. What had cut me? I must have rubbed my other foot across the ankle—my big toe, on the other foot, had a freakishly long toenail.
Unattractive. I didn’t like it. How had it gotten so long without me noticing? I felt embarrassed, despite being alone. I’d clip it right now, as soon as I shaved my legs and stepped out and toweled off.
But wait, the other toenails were long too—they all were, on both feet. They were almost obscene; they looked like a bird’s talons, like bird claws stuck onto a mammal. How could Will not have noticed, either? Maybe he’d been too polite to say anything. The front edges of the nails had to be nearly a centimeter long. Beyond disgusting.
I’ll get out right away and grab the clippers from the bag next to the sink, I thought. It was both strange and vile: my toenails had never been so long in my life. Must be because it’s winter, I told myself, you wear thick socks all the time, even to bed usually, hating to have cold feet—that must be how you missed it. I was about to turn off the water when I caught sight of my ankles, my calves. The hairs on them were as long as the toenails, practically. Jesus, I thought. How could that have happened?
