I cry on the couch, feeling the gap that’s formed between us widening when we’d hoped this move would close it. I cycle three times through all the channels before I give up.
The lights in the bedroom are off. In the soft shine of the moon through the window, I startle at what looks like a person opposite me, only to realize it’s a figure drawn on the wall. I flip my bedside light on, not sure if I hope to wake James or not. The outline droops with liquid, watery and pink, and I wonder, Paint? Blood? Those are all of the answers I can think of.
I remember the drawings on the wall the lady at the grocery store told me about. I shiver at this form, crude—like a child’s sketch: a rough, wide oval for its head; limbs that stretch too long; features simple and too small for the face.
James and I are living in a Latin mass, memorizing ritual, reciting mysteries we’ve given up on deciphering, foreign syllables unrolling in order.
I want to flip the light on and scream. I want to rock James awake and say, James, you said this was over and also I feel like something’s gone wrong in me, but instead I crawl under the blanket with him and place a hand on his smooth back and rest my lips on his shoulder and I pray.
32
“I GOT A talking-to from Kim,” I tell Sam. He’s eating a leftover pulled-pork sandwich at 9:05 a.m. I can see he’s already kicked his shoes off under his desk.
“Ah, I’m sorry, man. I couldn’t stay late last night. It would have taken me all night to get caught up with where you were in the project, and I had dinner plans.” He holds up the sandwich as if it’s evidence.
“It’s cool. I should have come back after I ran home.”
“Everything okay with Julie?” A piece of pork falls into his lap. He picks it up and delivers it into his mouth. The grease stain it leaves behind on his pants goes untended.
“I don’t know.” I edit my reply carefully. “She, uh, got stuck in a closet yesterday. How does that happen? And then I found this weird drawing on the wall of our bedroom.”
“Some crafty shit? Leaves and birds? My mom did that once and my dad painted over it because it was so bad. She was pissed.”
“No. I’m not sure what she was after with this. It’s like a cartoon person.”
“That’d be cool. Like Wolverine busting through the wall?”
I don’t correct him. I turn my computer on and take a sip of coffee.
Sam shifts. “Boss lady was mad, though, huh?”
“I shouldn’t ask for special treatment. They don’t even know me yet. I get it. It felt like an emergency. How do you explain that your wife somehow got lost in your own house? I know that sounds crazy.”
I’ve already spent Sam’s attention, though. He chuckles a little too late. I can tell he’s been absorbed into his computer screen.
33
I BEAT JAMES home from work, and instead of starting dinner as I normally would, I put on sneakers and walk across the yard. I listen for the children or for the birds, but I’m unspecific about my listening, and I can’t tell which it is I hear far out in the distance.
The day is clear and so the water reflects blue when I emerge on the beach. I feel hunger thrum within me and regret not cooking right away, and so I turn around. I retract back home, on automatic, my attention focused only on the ground in front of me. I emerge on the other side of the woods and cross through the grass and pull open the back door and find myself not in our home, but in Rolf’s kitchen. The door slams behind me, and I freeze, shocked, uncertain how I could be where I am, asking myself if this is the first time this has happened or the second. I force myself to move forward into his living room and pause to look at the portrait above the fireplace and search the young boy’s face for a resemblance to Rolf and find that familiar underbite, jutting out farther even than his wide, broken-looking nose. On the couch, I see a sweater that looks like one of my own. A reflex makes my hand grab it and hold it up and the label is the same brand as mine, a size large, but the knit has a stiff spot, like a liquid has dried near the collar. Cat hair snarls on the side that was facing out. When I hold the cardigan to my face, the smell of ammonia repels me. I vise the sweater between two fingers and tear the front door open, unconcerned about Rolf’s hearing the noise. I beat a shortcut through the fountain grass lining his front walk and yank open our own door and deposit the sweater in the laundry room before I run up the stairs to our bedroom, collapse facedown on the bed, deafen my exasperation in a pillow, and come up for air, certain the scent of that sweater is still straying nearby. Did Rolf steal my cardigan? Why? Had I been in his house before? Had I left it there? For a moment, I let myself consider what it must be like for an old man to hear his own front door slam and not know who or what has caused it. What role were we playing? The ghosts or the haunted?
When I look up, the figure drawn on the bedroom wall seems bigger than the night before, but I don’t yield to the confusion this time. I trace its edges with permanent marker to track growth, trying to define my own standard of safety.
I pull the journal I’d found in the wall out of the bedside table. I flick through, and illegible writing fills the pages—tiny, layered, crisscrossed—each piece of paper a woven tapestry. The penmanship forms itself like a rolling wave, never peaking or breaking. Stuffed into the beginning, some loose pages appear more precise but uncertain, like the handwriting of a child.
Mother avoids me now that Alban is gone. The shades stay drawn and I’m to be quiet. The people at church pity us. We hear them whispering. It’s unfortunate. I can’t imagine. Where was she at the time? I would have been there.
Father tells Mother they’ll have another child when the time is right. Mother wants another child now. Every night she cries.
At dinner now, we don’t speak. I stare straight ahead. Tonight, Mother broke the silence with Alban’s name. Mother struck herself. She slammed her head onto the table, punched her belly, bit her lip, squeezed the flesh of her legs so hard beneath her fingers that bruises formed. Father clutched her. I sit outside the closed loop of them. I am not enough.
Father disappears for days at a time. Mother’s sloppy grief has turned tough. He runs away. Mother is furious. Everything is worse.
At suppertime, I shave valerian root into the pots on the stove, trying to put all of us to sleep. I hide from her nightmares, stuff a blanket under the door, hum, make all the noise I can to block out the sounds. I can see her bad moods coming and swerve to avoid them.
I hear James arrive home. I force the book back into the drawer and lie down. He enters the room and rifles through the dresser for sweatpants. “Just taking a rest before dinner,” I say, as if he’s asked for an answer. He looks at the drawing, then at me. He gets out his camera and snaps several exposures.
“Not a bad idea,” I say, “to start documenting your work.”