I think about whether I should mention that we saw drawings like these in the cave, too. I tell myself that the writing on the walls of the cave is gone now, so sharing this would only make us seem more deluded.
I have the urge to apologize. I have the itch to say, This isn’t enough. I think you’re the one who can help. Instead, I allow the detectives to lead the way out of the room.
70
AT WORK I search a million terms trying to find an answer: bruises; primitive drawings; graphomania; contusions; filth; mold; blooms; infestation; magic tricks; haunting; shallow grave; spying; elder neighbor care; death; resurrection; caves. I search our names and our address but am accustomed to those results.
Nothing compelling turns up. I go to our team meeting to discuss the new product and explain my findings. People volunteer to look into different pieces of the puzzle, and I’m grateful I don’t need to run down the list of assignments I’d drawn up. A good team member can see a bigger picture and figure out his or her place. My coworker in publicity suggests different approaches for marketing the product and my mind wanders back to the search I’d been doing before the meeting. I turn to my laptop screen and enter all of the terms I’d thought of into the search bar at once and what returns shuts up my curiosity. I click into the image search, and the results become even more real. There, in picture after picture, are James and then me and then the house and then Rolf and then the cave and then the walls of the cave flush with scribbles and the documentation shots of my bruises and then the drawings on the walls of the house and then a picture of me last night in bed with a man I don’t recognize but know must be my husband and then and then and then.
My hearing blacks out, and I close my computer. “I’m sorry, if you’ll excuse me, I have a call I need to run to.” I hope no one will notice that it’s nowhere near the end of the hour. I pray no one will think it’s strange that I scheduled a call to overlap with an internal meeting I set up. If they ask, I will say I’m so busy, I’m running into myself.
71
THE POLICE CAR pulls away. I exit through the back door. I can’t stand to be in the house for another minute. I’m pushed out. The trees are fewer than before. The ones that have lasted are thick and tall like redwoods. I stare up through the undergrowth. The children have returned. They are rumbling now at each other. They sit at the ends of branches that don’t look as if they can hold their weight. They hold hands with the children in the trees beside them. I think of the game KerPlunk, where thin plastic sticks are inserted in a clear tube. Marbles balance on top of the intersections. The goal is to pull out the sticks without letting the marbles drop. Eventually all the orbs will fall, though. There is no way to balance slick glass on pure air.
I imagine the branches giving way. The children scattershot through the forest.
I call up to them. I ask if they need help. Their eyes shift down toward me. Their growls continue.
I go back to the edge of the yard. I look for what Julie thought was a grave. I consider burying myself there. The idea of it sounds secure to me. It would be satisfying to be locked in. I can sense the comfort of being weighed down. I think of a killer putting a victim in a bathtub and filling the bathtub with concrete. I pause on my way to the back door to try to imagine the pain that would arise from not being able to move. I try and try. It’s not there in the memories of my body.
I return to the house and realize I’ve left the back door wide-open. We’re so certain of our fear that we don’t think in those binaries anymore: inside outside, good evil, known unknown, fact fiction. There’s nothing to eliminate. There’s no way for us to know the same thing with our separate brains.
I fill a glass with water. I inspect it for spots of mold. I stare out of this container we’ve placed ourselves in. From every window I can see the neighbor’s house, the woods out back and to the side, the street, all at once, from every view. I imagine our home folded out like a map of the earth. I look out instead of in. I wonder where the break falls, like that scar that pulls the Pacific Ocean in half so we can see the whole flat world in a single glance. I think of the hidden rooms. I try to piece together a blueprint in my head. When the spaces don’t fit together, my mind breaks them apart, like resetting a bone.
I notice a shadow move in the house next door. Sure enough, there is Rolf’s face in the window. He stares at me for a moment, then is gone. I am wishing that I had proof. Whom would I show it to? I am reevaluating my allegiances.
72
I KNOCK ON Rolf’s door. I wonder if I actually saw him. I consider calling the police. I don’t know if what I have to tell them is truth, though.
What I do instead is return to the basement of my own home. I start pawing at the walls. I shove the cabinet out of the way to look at the stain. I grab a sledgehammer from the workbench. I barrel through the plaster. Nothing is hiding behind it as I’d hoped. The stalactite and stalagmite growths of dripping minerals from the edge of the foundation gather where the beads drop and land. I’m reminded of the subway stations back in the city. The growth is so gradual. The natural fights its way into our man-made world.
I run my hands around the rest of the basement walls. I see a shadow beneath the paint at the bottom of the stairs. I scratch at the wall with my fingers. The plaster lodges under my nails, stinging. I traipse to the workbench again. I rifle through the mess of my previous disturbances. I find sandpaper.
I will perform a dig. I will rough away the top layer of paint. I will uncover a truth.
I start wiping at the wall with the coarse square. The faint gray line becomes darker. I follow the line. I scratch down its length, like driving slowly in a snowstorm.
What I uncover is another face. It is not unlike the others that have shown up more plainly, a squared-off circle of sorts. I swipe at the middle. I find its crude features. I wonder if what I’m doing counts as drawing. Like the wood being carved away from a printing block, am I bringing these figures into being after all? Have I done this before?
I continue scratching. I find more of them: faces, a few stretching themselves down to shoulders. The plaster is thin in spots. A hole forms itself perfectly in the center of an eye or in the maw of a mouth. I try to look beyond them to see what is on the other side of this wall. My logical mind tells me it should be the furnace room.
I can’t see anything but darkness. I tell myself to get a flashlight. I obey.
I return downstairs. Piles of plaster dust the ground. I should have put on a mask. I think of what was trapped behind the walls that I might have released. I think of the mold crawling down my throat.