There’s a balcony in the back of the home, a basic, rudimentary sort of thing. Wooden scaffolding that soars up three floors, a wooden slab to stand upon. It looks unsafe to me. Unsound. Not up to code.
As I kneel before the window, I rest my elbows on the sill. Foolishly believing that I blend into the blackness of the room, that no one can see me from here. The house is dark, except for a single light that’s turned on. A yellow hue fills the margins of a window. The rest of it is blocked by a drawn window shade. I can’t see into the room, just that frame of light around the window shade.
Ms. Geissler must have forgotten to turn the light off before she went to bed, I rationalize, because it’s the middle of the night, and no one should be awake but me.
But as I stare, I see that the frame of light behind the window shade is moving, because the window shade inside it is also moving. It’s a gentle back and forth motion, as if a person had been standing just seconds ago behind it, lifting the edges of the shade to peer out.
I imagine her at the window, gazing out, seeing me lying on the mattress, pretending to sleep. I think of her own admission—I saw your light on late last night—and imagine that last night, like this, she stood at the window, staring at me. Me, who naively obliged, leaving the shades open wide, basic white roller shades that I didn’t once think necessary to pull down.
But now suddenly I do.
I watch the motion of the window shade as it slows and then stops.
And then, like that, the light flicks off.
The yellow edges of the window disappear. The greystone is engulfed in total darkness. I’d think nothing of it, but then it occurs to me that the light was coming from the third floor of the home. The place with the squirrels. The place where Ms. Geissler doesn’t go.
She was lying to me.
Why would she lie to me?
I crawl back into bed. I throw the covers over my head.
I make poor attempts to placate myself, to convince myself that the light is on a timer. That it’s automated. That it goes on and off of its own free will. That a heat vent was spewing warm air directly at the window shade, making it move.
But it’s not so easy to believe.
eden
May 14, 2001
Chicago
I watch as, beside me, Jessie sleeps. She’s out for the count now—finally, after a long, feverish night—spread out on a blanket on the floor, arms splayed in opposite directions like the wings of a jetliner. Her pale face is placid and calm, unlike last night when it was a fiery red, the fever and the fury creeping up her neckline, inflaming her forehead and cheeks. She’d cried out all night in discomfort, wailing, unable to get a hold of her own breath. Her fever capped at 103 degrees and I was grateful for this, for the fact that it wasn’t high enough to necessitate a visit to the emergency room. I don’t know if I’d have had it in me to go to the hospital had we needed to. I find that the very notion of hospitals—the antiseptic smells, the insipid hallways, the vigilant eyes—still gets under my skin sometimes, like some form of PTSD, I think, because just thinking about being in one rattles my nerves, makes me dizzy, makes my chest hurt. I don’t know that I could ever go back to one, not after what I’ve done. I’m certain they’d see clear through me, that—even with all these miles spread between us—they, the doctors, the nurses, the ladies at the reception desk, would know just exactly who I am, as if I have my own scarlet A forever etched into my shirt as a reminder of my guilt.
I stare at Jessie, sound asleep on the quilted blanket beside me. Her hair fans out around her face. Her arms, both of them, are thrust upward and over her head now like goalposts. There isn’t a single line on her skin anywhere, and though I don’t want to wake her, I stroke the back of a finger across her tranquil ivory cheek, grateful she still sleeps.
It takes my breath away sometimes, the way that she looks absolutely nothing like me, but is instead all blond hair and blue-eyed. And then there are those dimples—those dimples!—the most telling of all, so that I’ve tried sucking my cheeks in from time to time in the hopes of replicating them on my own skin. It doesn’t work, of course, and instead of dimples I’m left with a fish face that makes Jessie laugh. There are times I find that I have to remind myself that I am a mother, that I am her mother, and I wonder if others see the hesitation in me, the doubt, or if it’s only in my mind.
Yesterday as we were walking from the French bakery, the one with the luscious petits fours for which I had a sudden craving, the woman behind the counter wished me a happy Mother’s Day, and there was something querying about it that I didn’t like. It rubbed me the wrong way. What started as a polite greeting turned into a question instead, as if she doubted at that last moment—words already out of her mouth, too late to pluck them back—whether she should be wishing me a happy Mother’s Day.
Was I the child’s mother? Was I a mother? After all, we looked nothing alike, and of course the lack of a wedding ring raised a red flag. Perhaps I was only the child’s babysitter, her nanny, the au pair.
As I thanked the woman I saw her turn red with shame, believing she’d misspoken. But I grabbed for Jessie and said, “Come along, my darling girl,” as if that might validate it for both her and me. As if it might make my maternity more real.
All afternoon I found myself overthinking, wondering what exactly that woman saw that made her question whether I was Jessie’s mother. Was it the manner in which I carried myself, the way I spoke, the lack of a physical resemblance? I thought about it all day and night, wanting to know, needing to know, so that whatever it was, I could next time disguise it better.
jessie
The day begins with a cleaning assignment, the first in two weeks. It’s a good thing for more reasons than one. These days, cash is in short supply, and I need something to do with my time. Something better than to obsess over my social security number or lack thereof, Ms. Geissler staring out her window, watching me—which, even by the light of day, still rattles me. So much so that before I leave, I eye the window shades in the carriage home, fully intent on pulling each and every one down so that no one can see inside while I’m gone.
I slip out of the carriage home quietly, setting the door closed.
I make my way down the alleyway in back, avoiding Ms. Geissler.
At 7:30 a.m., I arrive at the home on Paulina, a typical workers cottage. I have to ring the doorbell twice before Mrs. Pugh comes to the door and even then, when she draws it open, there’s a deliberateness about it. It’s not the breezy way she typically throws open the door and welcomes me in. Her voice is out of joint, uncharacteristic of her typical chirpiness. “Jessie,” she says at seeing me standing there. The word falls flat, her eyes dropping to the mop and bucket in my hands, the cleaning caddy stuffed up under my arm. It’s far more than my two arms can carry, so that I feel clumsy though I haven’t dropped anything. Not yet.
As the sun rises, it lands on the nape of my neck, making it warm, which is a relief from the near-hypothermic way I spent the night in the carriage home. Cold enough to freeze. My teeth chattered all night, body wrapped up in the one blanket I could find. Three pairs of socks on my feet.
It isn’t so much a welcome. “Jessie?” is what Mrs. Pugh really means, a question more than anything, as if she’s surprised to see me, as if she’s asking why I’m here. She stands before me in a robe and slippers, shielded by the door. There’s no workout attire as expected. No yoga mat and no gym shoes. She must not be feeling well, I guess, because at eight in the morning Mrs. Pugh has yoga, so that by seven thirty, she’s always dressed, hair done up in a ponytail with strands that hang loose and frame her face. But not today.
“Am I early?” I ask, looking at my watch, which tells me it’s seven thirty. I’m not early because I’m right on time. I hear Mr. Pugh call from the distance, “Who’s there?” he asks.