Julie doesn’t notice. In all of the distraction, she sees me leave the house every day and return home. She doesn’t question my destination. She doesn’t realize I’ve been going to the library. I tell myself I’m looking for work. Really, I spend more time hunting for clues to our puzzle. I hunt the microfiche for more information about Rolf’s family and the history of our house. Nothing is coming together, though. I scoot the computer screen right up to the edge of the desk to get a better look. I push my eyes as close as possible so I can see the grid of pixels. I can’t see the graininess I used to with older screens. I miss that shocking fluorescence that would appear if you got in tight enough.
I call Sam to ask him if he has any job leads. He whispers, “Jim, I don’t think you should be calling me here anymore. I can talk to you later from home. Deal?”
“Do you want to get a beer tonight?” I ask.
“I think it’s better if we don’t.” He hangs up. I can’t blame him.
I’d had no interest in walking into a boss’s office and quitting. I thought I would see how much they’d put up with before I was let go. I was taking chances and hoping for the worst. I was hoping the worst would hold out for as long as possible.
That night, Julie and I play Battleship with our laptops—that’s what we call it when we sit across the table from one another with our screens open. I let myself hunt job listings inches away from her. I have grown bold. We’ve been quiet for so long that when she says my name suddenly, I startle.
I close my browser instinctively. I look up. She’s staring not at me, but past me. I realize she might have seen the reflection of my screen in the glass of the china cabinet. “What?” I already feel sick at having to talk through this with her.
Her eyes are not on the cabinet, though, but lower. I turn to look. She whispers, “In the kitchen.” I look at the crack of light under the closed door. Divided into threes, a shadow the width and placement of what one might assume are two feet breaks up the line of light.
I train my eyes on it. I cycle through answers in my mind. Nothing makes sense. I hold out my hand to indicate she shouldn’t move. I grab the fireplace poker. I try to approach the door quietly. A floorboard creaks. I watch the shadow shuffle slightly. “Hello?” I call.
I push the door open.
There is nothing at all on the other side: just the kitchen in the yellow glow of the light above the stove. I look into the pantry. I look down the basement stairs. My sight returns nothing.
In the dining room, I close the door to the kitchen again. We inspect the crack of light for the shadow. It’s seamless now. Once we’ve confirmed this, I prop open the door. “Why was this closed anyway?” I ask.
“I didn’t want the heat of the oven to get the whole house hot.”
I take another lap around. I look in every hiding spot we know of. I punch into the free ceiling tile in the basement. I peer behind the loose brick in the fireplace. I inspect the guest room carefully. We appear to be alone.
48
AT NIGHT, I try to sleep, but can’t. I sit by the window, looking for that missing gaze. James says, “Lie down. I’ll tell you a bedtime story,” and he does, but the story lacks a proper ending.
“Does the man get over the wall?” I ask, but he doesn’t know. “Does the dog live?” He doesn’t know that either.
“I see some barbed wire or chicken wire or something,” he says, as if the story is coming to him in a vision.
“Make up the ending.”
He says it’s not that simple.
I run my feet along the cool sheets at the bottom of the bed and feel something grainy. “What’s all that grime down there? Are your feet dirty?”
James says he went to the beach, that he forgets about the spaces between his toes, that more sand is always hiding there.
“Well, go rinse it off.” But he doesn’t move. “James, I just changed these sheets. Will you go rinse off your feet?” But he’s already asleep, as if nothing I say could even matter all that much. I lie in bed unable to quiet my mind.
In the story, a man is trying to escape a prison, not a government prison, but more like he’s held captive by a villain and he sees an opportunity to get free, but he’s grown attached to this dog who’s in the yard where he is being held and he wants the dog to be free, too. He’s pulled loose some of the barbed wire lining the top of the fence and thinks he might be able to scramble over the cement wall if he can get enough momentum, but not while holding the dog, so he ties a rope around the dog as a harness, and he ties that rope to his belt and he scrambles up to the top of the fence and starts to haul up the dog, but the dog is frantic, and not interested in being airborne, and the man knows that if he lifts that dog, it will whine and bark, and the villain might emerge at the ruckus and shoot the man or drag him back down into the yard and kill or torture both of them. But the man cannot decide what to do: free himself or take a risk.
After James falls asleep, I decide I should call the police. I tell myself I should wait until morning, but once I’ve made my decision, I need to act.
I slip out of bed and into the guest room. I hunt the walls for shadows I don’t want to see. I dial the nonemergency number. “I’d like to report a missing person.”
49
I FIND JULIE sitting under a blanket on the front porch. I join her. We are quiet for a long time. We see the lights of the police cars pull up.
We watch them knock on the neighbor’s door. There is no answer. They let themselves in. They stay inside for a long time. More arrive. We get up the courage to go talk to them.
“You’re the one who called us?” an officer with a deep scar down his cheek asks Julie. There isn’t an iota of blame in his voice.
“Yes, I’m Julie.” She shakes his hand.
The officer lifts his eyes over Julie to me. “You’re another neighbor?”
“I’m Julie’s husband.” I try to stay friendly. I hold out my hand. “James Khoury.” The officer doesn’t break eye contact. I never know if I’m supposed to do the same or look away. Which is more confrontational? Is this a moment to abide or resist?
“When was the last time you saw him?” the officer asks.
Julie pauses. She feels guilty, but not of a crime. “Friday. I saw him Friday by the beach.”
“He seemed well?” the officer asks.
“I think so. As well as well was for him. Obviously, he’s old.”
“And it’s unusual that you wouldn’t have seen him for as many days as this?”
“I thought he was homebound before I saw him the other day.” She pauses, then absently adds, “He watches us. From his windows, and he hasn’t been watching lately.”
The cop lifts an eyebrow. The situation shifts. “If we don’t find anything inside, we’ll search the woods and the lake, too. We’ll locate him.”
The cop looks back at the house, now a blaze of light. We see men appearing in the windows, rooms we’ve never viewed before, dulled by the layers of curtains: dioramas thinly veiled. It’s impossible not to think of our own home. Its bare glass showcases everything we do.
The labor of this night wells up in us. Julie thanks the officer. “We’re going to head back inside, but please let us know if there’s anything you need.”
“Will do, ma’am.” The officer tips his chin at me.
We climb our stairs. We step through the front door. We hide behind a wall that is more keeping us in than keeping anything out.
50
“YOU CALLED THE police?” I ask Julie. “I wish you’d talked to me about it first.”