It’s dark by the time we arrive. Cars drive past us, slowly heading home from work. Their headlights are on, navigating the way home. At some point a cell phone rings—his, not mine—and I freeze in place like a chipmunk, entirely motionless. The wind blows through me rather than around. It hurls itself right to my core, making everything down to my liver and spleen cold. “Hello,” he says, pausing on the street, answering the phone. His voice is gentle, telling the person on the other end of the line that he’ll be home soon. He got held up at work; he’s running late. He doesn’t mention the tire of the car. He sounds strange and hollow in the vacancy of the nighttime street, his voice bouncing off concrete and trees. The call is short and sweet, laced with words like darling and dear. His wife. And then they say their goodbyes and he ends the call.
He walks quickly, the sound of his feet taking consistent steps on the pavement. I walk quickly, though my steps are silent. He steps over a pothole on the narrow street. I do, too. At one point he pauses and turns around, as if he knows he’s in pursuit, and I fall quickly to the street in the prone position behind a parked car, feeling like an idiot as I do, but I do it, anyway, waiting, holding my breath, until the shrink gives up and continues on his way.
As Dr. Giles pushes through a squeaky metal fence and hikes up the long driveway, I remain on the other side of the street, squatting behind a parked car, a beat-up black Nissan that certainly doesn’t belong on this street. I have no idea what I’m here to do or see, why I trailed him home. What was I hoping to gain from it? I don’t know. But at least I know now where he lives, in a Cotswold cottage that should really be in some small English hamlet rather than here, in our dinky Michigan town. He lets himself in through the arched doorway, and there in the casement window she appears, the missus. She runs to him with small, precise footsteps, and he sweeps her into his arms where they kiss with that familiarity husbands and wives often share, a mastery of where hands and lips go, of whose head goes in which direction when they kiss, of how long they have before the rug rats appear. And then, like that, they do appear, two sprogs standing at his feet, arms raised, begging to be picked up. And he does; he picks them up, one at a time, the bigger one first followed by the little one. The whole scene is something I have no awareness of. No comprehension. No knowledge. It’s as strange to me as a foreign language, the image of a happy, nuclear family—a mom, a dad, two kids and, no doubt, a dog. As conflicting to my family as black is to white. Polar opposites.
My childhood was something much different than this. My mother and Pops never fought; rather, it was the silence that did them in. The fact that they could go for days, occupying the same space, breathing in and out the same oxygen and carbon dioxide, without speaking, but rather moving around and around in silent isolated spheres, one for Mom, one for Pops and me.
But then again, unlike Dr. Giles and his wife, I hardly think Pops and my mother were in love. Well, one of them wasn’t, anyway, while the other was head over heels.
His wife is pretty, but in this dolled-up way that doesn’t really appeal to me. Even from this distance I can see that she’s got on too much makeup, too much hair spray in her flaxen hair. She’s just shy of me thinking she’s a prima donna, but more like a lady who tries hard to look good for her husband when he comes home from work. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. She leans into him, his hands falling to her waistline, hers rising to his shoulders, so that for one split second I think that there, in the large bay windows, for all of the world to watch and see, they might just dance.
I can’t hear the rug rats, but through the window I see them. I see the gigantic smiles on their faces as they giggle, watching their mother and father embrace, and for some strange reason it makes me mad. Jealousy is what it is. I’m jealous.
They have no idea I’m watching. If they did, I wonder if they’d care. Doesn’t seem so to me. But still, I’ve seen enough. I don’t need to watch this anymore.
I stand and turn to go, and as I do, I’m all but certain I hear something—a mewl, a bleat, a whine. A cry. I don’t know. Some kind of noise, echoing up and down the street, through the trees.
“Hello?” I call out, but there’s no response. Only the rustle of leaves in the trees. “Is someone there?” I ask, feeling again like a chicken as my heart starts to race and my head spins. It’s dark out here, nearly black, the gleam of porch lights barely stretching down to the middle of the street where I stand. The wind blows again and I shiver, an earthquake of a shiver that rattles me from head to toe.
Is someone there? Is something there? Not that I can see. All I see are houses and trees, houses and trees. A car passes by, headlights illuminating the scene. I peer in the glow of the passing light, but still, I see nothing.
But then again I hear that noise.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
It’s a squirrel, I tell myself. A chipmunk, a raccoon. A bird nesting in the trees. Garbage on the street. Litter. A hawk, an owl. The last few crickets that haven’t been done in by the cold, singing their own little dirge.
But still, as rational as all that sounds in my head, I’m overcome by the strangest sensation that I’m not alone.
As I walk away, I realize this: someone is here with me, matching me stride for stride.
TUESDAY
Quinn
I wake up early the following morning and spend a few minutes putting together my puzzle pieces on the floor of Esther’s room. I’m making progress, albeit not much, just the berry blue of a sky and nothing more. The rest of the image lies in an unkempt pile on the floor. I shower and dress for work. Ben calls early to see if there’s been any word from Esther, and I tell him sadly no. He hasn’t had any luck with his search, either.
Before leaving, I snatch some cash from Esther’s and my Rent envelope in the kitchen drawer, one twenty-dollar bill and a couple of singles. It’s empty now—the envelope—thanks to my Jimmy John’s purchase and now this, and so I step on the foot pedal of the trash can, ready to toss it in.
And that’s when I see the ATM receipts tucked away in the garbage can.
Normally they wouldn’t catch my eye—I’m not one for picking through trash—but I see Esther’s bank’s insignia right away and know that they’re not mine. They’re Esther’s receipts. I reach my hand inside the trash can, steering clear of a splatter of ketchup on a dirty napkin that the receipts are hidden beneath. I pull them out, three of them, three receipts dated Thursday, Friday and Saturday afternoons, each a withdrawal for five hundred dollars, cash. That’s fifteen hundred bucks. One thousand five hundred dollars. A whole lotta moola, to be sure.
What in the world would Esther need fifteen hundred dollars for, taken out over the course of three days? I don’t know for certain, but strawberry daiquiris in Punta Cana come to mind. Seems like a nice place for Jane Girard to take a vacation. Seems like a nice place for me to take a vacation, but I doubt in my life I’ll ever make it to Punta Cana. Five hundred dollars is the maximum withdrawal limit for most banks, not that I’m one to know; I don’t even have five hundred dollars to my name. Everything I make at work gets handed over to Esther straightaway to cover rent and utilities, leaving only some spare change for the occasional night out or a pair of new shoes.
What is Esther doing walking around town with fifteen hundred dollars stuffed in her purse? I wonder. But I can’t think about this right now. Right now there are other things on my mind.
I’m about to head out the door when I throw it open and there, standing on the other side, is the building’s maintenance man, John, who’s, like, eighty years old and wears navy blue coveralls, though it’s not like a person needs coveralls to change the occasional lightbulb or battle a colony of carpenter ants. His hand is raised in the air, ready to knock. Beside his feet is a toolbox, and in his hand is a whole assortment of things, tools I don’t recognize, tools I do, a brand-new door handle and a dead-bolt lock, to boot.
“What’s this?” I ask, staring down at the dead-bolt lock as he tears into the plastic box and removes it from its packaging.