Iris staggered, tearing her fingers through her snarled hair.
The knocking came again, insistent. And then his voice—which was the last voice she wanted to hear—called through the wood: “Winnow? Winnow, are you there?”
Roman Kitt was at her flat, knocking on her door.
Her heart quickened as she strode into the living room, directly to the door so she could peer through the peephole. Yes, there he was, standing with her trench coat draped over his arm, his face marked with concern.
“Winnow? If you’re there, please open the door.”
She continued to stare at him, noticing when his concern turned into fear. She saw his hand stray to the doorknob. When the knob turned and the door began to open, she realized with a pang that she had forgotten to lock it last night.
Iris had only three seconds to scramble backward as the door swung open. She stood in a flood of sunshine, pulse hammering in her throat as Roman caught sight of her.
She must have looked exceptionally dreadful, because he startled. And then his breath left him in a rush as he stepped over the threshold.
“Are you all right?”
Iris froze as his eyes raced over her. For a split second, she was so relieved to see him that she could have wept. But then she realized two horrible things. The first was that her blouse was gaping open, the buttons undone halfway to her navel. She glanced down and saw the white lace of her bra, which Roman no doubt had also noticed by now, and she gasped, holding the fabric closed with a trembling hand.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Roman said in a very strange voice. It took another two seconds for Iris to infer that he thought she had been with someone, and she blanched.
“No. I’m home alone,” she croaked, but his eyes were drifting beyond her, as if he expected another person to emerge from the bedroom.
And that was when the second terrible revelation hit her. Roman Upper Class Kitt was standing in her home. Her rival was standing in her flat, beholding the disarray of her life. He could see the melted candles on the sideboard from all the nights she couldn’t afford electricity, and the stray wine bottles that she had yet to gather and dispose of. How barren the living room was, and how the wallpaper was faded and falling apart.
Iris took a step away from him, pride burning in her bones. She couldn’t bear for Roman to see her like this. She couldn’t bear for him to see how messy things were in her life. For him to see her on her worst day.
“Winnow?” he said, taking a step closer, as if he felt the tug of her movements. “You’re all right?”
“I’m fine, Kitt,” she said, surprised by how rough-hewn her voice was, as if she hadn’t spoken in years. “What are you doing here?”
“We’re all very concerned,” he replied. “You left work early yesterday, and you didn’t show this morning. Is everything okay?”
She swallowed, torn between telling him the truth and concealing her pain. She stared at his chest, unable to meet his eyes. She realized if she told him about her mother, he would pity her even more than he already did. And that was the last thing she wanted.
“Yes, I’m sorry for leaving yesterday,” she said. “I felt ill. And I overslept.”
“Do you need me to send for a doctor?”
“No!” She cleared her throat. “No but thank you. I’m on the mend. Tell Autry I’ll be in first thing tomorrow.”
Roman nodded, but his eyes narrowed as he intently studied her, like he sensed her lie. “Can I get you anything else? Are you hungry? Should I fetch a sandwich or soup or whatever else you’d like?”
She gaped for a second, shocked by his offer. His gaze began to flicker around the room again, taking in the shambles she was so desperate to hide from him. Panic surged through her. “No! No, I don’t need anything. You can go now, Kitt.”
He frowned. The sunlight limned his body, but a shadow danced over his face.
“Of course. I’ll leave, as you want. I brought your coat, by the way.”
“Right. You, erm, you shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble.” She awkwardly accepted the coat, still holding her blouse shut. She avoided making eye contact.
“It was no trouble,” he said.
She could feel him staring at her, as if daring her to meet his gaze.
She couldn’t.
She would break if she did, and she waited for him to retrace his steps over the threshold.
“Will you lock the door behind me?” he asked.
Iris nodded, hugging the trench coat to her chest.
Roman finally shut the door.
She continued to stand in the empty flat. As if she had grown roots.
The minutes flowed, but she hardly sensed time. Everything felt distorted, like she was looking at her life through fractured glass. Dust motes spun in the air around her. A deep breath unspooled from her as she went to lock the door, and then she thought better of it, and looked through the peephole again.
He was still standing there, hands shoved into his coat pockets, his dark hair windblown. Waiting. Her annoyance flared until she bolted the door. As soon as he heard the locks slide, Roman Kitt turned and left.
{12}
A Shadow You Carry
Iris spent the rest of that day in a haze, trying to make sense of things. But it was like her life had shattered into a hundred pieces, and she wasn’t sure how to make it fit back together. She thought that perhaps the ache she felt would never diminish, and she bit her nails to the quick as she wandered through the flat like a ghost.
Eventually she settled in her room, on the floor. She reached for her grandmother’s typewriter and drew it out into the dusky light.
If she thought about it too hard, the words would become ice. And so Iris didn’t think; she let the words pass through her heart to her mind, down her arms to her fingertips, and she wrote:
Sometimes I’m afraid to love other people.
Everyone I care about eventually leaves me, whether it’s death or war or simply because they don’t want me. They go places I can’t find, places I can’t reach. And I’m not afraid to be alone, but I’m tired of being the one left behind. I’m tired of having to rearrange my life after the people within it depart, as if I’m a puzzle and I’m now missing pieces and I will never feel that pure sense of completion again.
I lost someone close to me, yesterday. It doesn’t feel real yet.
And I’m not sure who you are, where you are. If you are breathing the same hour, the same minute as me, or if you are decades before or years to come. I don’t know what is connecting us—if it’s magical thresholds or conquered god bones or something else we’ve yet to discover. Most of all, I don’t know why I’m writing to you now. But here I am, reaching out to you. A stranger and yet a friend.