I open the door and there she is. Not Heidi, of course. Though there’s a split second of what-if? What if it is Heidi, flown all the way to Denver to see me, abandoning that girl and her baby who have consumed our home, swallowing my wife whole. What if she made arrangements for Zoe to stay with Jennifer, hopped a flight out to Denver and now here she is, to spend the night with me?
But the scene that greets me instead is something else entirely, Cassidy Knudsen letting herself into my room. She’s wearing leggings, black and tight, with some sort of baggy tunic whose V-neck exposes the basin between her breasts, a valley, a ravine set between neighboring hills, the skin soft and pale, up for grabs. She wears some sort of pendant necklace, with a long copper chain that forces the eyes to the V of that tunic, forces the eyes down to where the charm sits tucked beneath the shirt, at the end of the copper chain. The makeup on her face is barely there, save for the bright red lipstick that seems to have become a matter of course, the norm. There are heels on her feet, four-inch heels, red, like the lipstick.
She lets herself in, as always, without waiting to be invited.
And there I stand, in my pajama pants and undershirt, still clutching a toothbrush in my hand.
“I didn’t know you were stopping by,” I say, “or I would’ve...” my voice drifts off and I’m not sure what to say. I glance around the room to see the day’s clothing in a pile on the floor, the seersucker pants that cling to my legs like plastic wrap.
She doesn’t have to tell me why she’s there; I know what she’s come to do. She moves quickly, her hands on me, her lips on mine, stating in an undertone, “I can’t tell you how long I’ve wanted to do this,” and I say, “Cassidy,” though I’m not sure if the word comes out argumentative or inviting. I make a feeble attempt to slide away, out of reach, though deep inside my mind screams at me to let her. To push those forgotten memories of another Heidi out of my mind, and let Cassidy do as she pleases, whatever she came here to do.
And then she’s touching me, but her hands are cold, different from Heidi’s in so many ways. They are bold and presumptuous, not waiting to get acquainted before they dive right in, full steam ahead. She’s doing everything wrong, not the way Heidi would do it, Heidi who is indulgent in the way she touches me, tender, and I find myself thinking about Heidi, suddenly, desperately, longing for Heidi, wishing it were Heidi here in this hotel room, with me.
I’m thinking what Heidi would say if she knew what was happening right now, how it would make her feel. Heidi who is wholesome, generous beyond belief; Heidi who refuses to smash a spider with a shoe.
“Stop,” I say, pushing her away, gently at first, and then harder. “Stop, Cassidy,” I say, “I can’t do this. I can’t do this to Heidi.”
I want Heidi. I miss Heidi.
I miss my wife.
But Cassidy is staring at me with this morose look on her face, and she says, “You’ve got to be kidding, Chris,” and it’s not that she’s had her feelings hurt or that she’s feeling embarrassed that she’s been refused. “Heidi?” she asks. She stares at me with puppy-dog eyes, big and blue, pouting, saying my wife’s name as if it is low-grade.
It isn’t that Cassidy can’t believe she’s been turned down.
It’s that she can’t believe she’s been turned down for Heidi.
I miss Heidi and her goodness, her virtue. I miss that she cares for homeless cats, and illiterate men, and children in countries whose names I can’t say. Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan and Bahrain.
I can’t stand to stay there, in that room, with Cassidy. My pulse beats loudly in my ear. My hands are clammy, my balance off, as I thrust my feet into a pair of loafers waiting by the door, Cassidy’s voice in the background calling me by name, laughing, saying Don’t go, leaving me dizzy. Vertigo. I lay a hand on the wall to steady myself as Cassidy continues to incant my name, to reveal herself to me as if it might just change my mind.
WILLOW
What I tell Ms. Flores is that Joseph brought me meals twice a day, and twice a day he removed them from my room. I tell her that he wouldn’t let me out, even to pee. From time to time he’d come to empty a jar he had given me (though the smell of my own pee never went with it), and that every night he came to call, unlocking and thrusting open that bedroom door and telling me to undress.
I tell her that every night, after he’d gone to bed, I checked that door to make sure it was locked.
I tell her that I sat there, day in and day out, praying that one day he might forget to lock the door.
I tell her that Matthew never came around, that I didn’t see him again after that day he limped out the front door.
I tell her that I didn’t see Isaac, though I heard his voice, echoing throughout the home, and knew that he was there, moving in and out of a world I could no longer see.