I press her. “What makes your family life challenging?”
She exhales. A perfect wreath of smoke wobbles through the air.
“Do it again,” I say, in spite of myself. She does. I’m drunk, I realize.
“You know”—clearing her throat—“it isn’t just one thing. It’s complicated. Alistair is challenging. Families are challenging.”
“But Ethan is a good kid. And I say this as someone who knows a good kid when she sees one,” I add.
She looks me in the eye. “I’m glad you think so. I do, too.” She bats her cigarette on the lip of the bowl again. “You must miss your family.”
“Yes. Terribly. But I talk to them every day.”
She nods. Her eyes are swimming a bit; she must be drunk, too. “It’s not the same as them being here, though, is it?”
“No. Of course not.”
She nods a second time. “So. Anna. You’ll notice I’m not asking what made you this way.”
“Overweight?” I say. “Prematurely gray?” I really am soused.
She sips her wine. “Agoraphobic.”
“Well . . .” If we’re trading confidences, then I suppose: “Trauma. Same as anyone.” I fidget. “It got me depressed. Severely depressed. It isn’t something I like to remember.”
But she’s shaking her head. “No, no, I understand—it’s not my business. And I’m guessing you can’t invite people over for a party. I just think we need to find you some more hobbies. Besides chess and your black-and-white movies.”
“And espionage.”
“And espionage.”
I think about it. “I used to take photographs.”
“Looks as though you still do.”
That deserves a smirk. “Fair enough. But I mean outdoor photography. I enjoyed it.”
“Sort of Humans of New York stuff?”
“More like nature photography.”
“In New York City?”
“In New England. We used to go there sometimes.”
Jane turns to the window. “Look at that,” she says, pointing west, and I do: a pulpy sunset, the dregs of dusk, buildings paper-cut against the glow. A bird circles nearby. “That’s nature, isn’t it?”
“Technically. Some of it. But I mean—”
“The world is a beautiful place,” she insists, and she’s serious; her gaze is even, her voice level. Her eyes catch mine, hold them. “Don’t forget that.” She reclines, mashing her cigarette into the hollow of the bowl. “And don’t miss it.”
I fish my phone from my pocket, aim it at the glass, snap a shot. I look at Jane.
“Attagirl,” she growls.
19
I pour her into the front hall a little past six. “I’ve got very important things to do,” she informs me.
“So do I,” I reply.
Two and a half hours. When did I last speak to someone, anyone, for two and a half hours? I cast my mind back, like a fishing line, across months, across seasons. Nothing. No one. Not since my first meeting with Dr. Fielding, long ago in midwinter—and even then I could only talk for so long; my windpipe was still damaged.
I feel young again, almost giddy. Maybe it’s the wine, but I suspect not. Dear diary, today I made a friend.
Later that evening, I’m drowsing through Rebecca when the buzzer rings.
I shed my blanket, straggle to the door. “Why don’t you go?” Judith Anderson sneers behind me. “Why don’t you leave Manderley?”
I check the intercom monitor. A tall man, broad-shouldered and slim-hipped, with a bold widow’s peak. It takes me a moment—I’m used to seeing him in living color—but then I recognize Alistair Russell.
“Now what might you be after?” I say, or think. I think I say it. Definitely still drunk. I shouldn’t have popped those pills before, either.
I press the buzzer. The latch clacks; the door groans; I wait for it to shut.
When I open the hall door, he’s standing there, pale and luminous in the dark. Smiling. Strong teeth bolting from strong gums. Clear eyes, crow’s feet raking the edges.
“Alistair Russell,” he says. “We live in two-oh-seven, across the park.”
“Come in.” I extend a hand. “I’m Anna Fox.”
He waves away my hand, stays put.
“I really don’t want to intrude—and I’m sorry to disturb you in the middle of something. Movie night?”
I nod.
He smiles again, bright as a Christmas storefront. “I just wanted to know if you’d had any visitors this evening?”
I frown. Before I can answer, an explosion booms behind me—the shipwreck scene. “Ship ashore!” the coastliners wail. “Everybody down to the bay!” Much hubbub.
I return to the sofa, pause the film. When I face him again, Alistair has taken a step into the room. Bathed in white light, shadows pooled in the hollows of his cheeks, he looks like a cadaver. Behind him the door yawns in the wall, a dark mouth.
“Would you mind closing that?” He does so. “Thanks,” I say, and the word slides off my tongue: I’m slurring.
“Have I caught you at a bad time?”
“No, it’s fine. Can I get you a drink?”
“Oh, thanks, I’m all right.”
“I meant water,” I clarify.
He shakes his head politely. “Have you had any visitors tonight?” he repeats.
Well, Jane warned me. He doesn’t look like the controlling type, all beady eyes and thin lips; he’s more a jovial lion-in-autumn sort, with his peppery beard, his hairline in rapid retreat. I imagine him and Ed getting on, laddishly, hail-fellow-well-mettishly, slinging back whiskey and swapping war stories. But appearances, et cetera.
It’s none of his business, of course. Still, I don’t want to look defensive. “I’ve been alone all night,” I tell him. “I’m in the middle of a movie marathon.”
“What’s that?”
“Rebecca. One of my favorites. Are you—”
Then I see that he’s looking past me, dark brow furrowed. I turn.
The chess set.
I’ve filed the glasses neatly in the dishwasher, scrubbed the bowl in the sink, but the chessboard is still there, littered with the living and the dead, Jane’s fallen king rolled to one side.
I turn back to Alistair.
“Oh, that. My tenant likes to play chess,” I explain. Casual.
He looks at me, squints. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. Usually this isn’t a challenge for me, not after sixteen years spent living in other people’s heads; but perhaps I’m out of practice. Or else it’s the drink. And the drugs.
“Do you play?”
He doesn’t answer for a moment. “Not in a long time,” he says. “Is it just you and your tenant here?”
“No, I—yes. I’m separated from my husband. Our daughter is with him.”
“Well.” He throws one last look at the chess set, at the television; then he moves toward the door. “I appreciate your time. Sorry to bother you.”
“Of course,” I say as he steps into the hall. “And please thank your wife for the candle.”
He pivots, looks at me.
“Ethan brought it over.”
“When was that?” he asks.
“A few days ago. Sunday.” Wait—what day is today? “Or Saturday.” I feel annoyed; why should he care when it was? “Does it matter?”
He pauses, his mouth ajar. Then he flashes an absent smile and leaves without another word.
Before I tilt myself into bed, I peer through the window at number 207. There they are, the family Russell, collected in the parlor: Jane and Ethan on the sofa, Alistair seated in an armchair across from them, speaking intently. A good man and a good father.
Who knows what goes on in a family? I learned this as a grad student. “You can spend years with a patient and still they’ll surprise you,” Wesley told me after we’d shaken hands for the first time, his fingers yellow with nicotine.
“How so?” I asked.
He settled himself behind his desk, clawed his hair back. “You can hear someone’s secrets and their fears and their wants, but remember that these exist alongside other people’s secrets and fears, people living in the same rooms. You’ve heard that line about all happy families being the same?”
“War and Peace,” I said.
“Anna Karenina, but that’s not the point. The point is, it’s untrue. No family, happy or unhappy, is quite like any other. Tolstoy was chock-full o’ shit. Remember that.”
I remember it now as I gently thumb the focusing ring, as I frame a photo. A family portrait.
But then I set the camera down.
Wednesday, November 3
20