Winter changed everything. We were unprepared. The house was freezing. We bought space heaters, but I was perpetually anxious that they would fall over and set the whole place on fire with us inside. My husband joked that we would just have to use our body heat, but that was not enough.
As it got colder, the roads got more dangerous, and the taxi service I used to get to my appointments became less and less reliable. My therapist was forgiving about me being late or missing them entirely, but it was still a problem. It also meant I spent much more time alone in that cold house, which seemed to me so spooky now that I didn’t have a dog to protect and comfort me.
One day in early December my husband called me from work. He wanted to bring one of his friends to dinner that night, was that OK? I didn’t feel like making conversation with a stranger, and our house was still full of cardboard boxes. But I could hardly say no. It’s not like I had anything better to do than cook for three instead of two.
The friend, Ted Simpson, was a colleague from the bank, and he was distraught. He had missed as many days of work as he could get away with, and now when he came to the office, he was distracted and miserable. My husband tried to intervene on his behalf, to get him more sick days, but it didn’t work.
His daughter, Meadow, from whom he had been estranged for many years, was missing. She had been in and out of rehabs and halfway houses since she was a teenager, but now she was really gone. Ted was tired from driving around all night, through the bad parts of Kingston and Poughkeepsie.
Meadow’s mother had died when she was in kindergarten. I think my husband hoped that my fatherlessness and Meadow’s motherlessness would create some kind of bond, and that I would be able to offer Ted some comfort. I could not. I could barely even cook him an edible meal.
As we ate, my husband and Ted discussed Meadow in low, solemn voices. My husband asked a lot of questions about her. He wanted to know how long Meadow had been gone, what the police were doing, if Ted thought it was enough. He asked if there was a reward for information. Maybe the bank could provide one. If not, maybe it could host some sort of fund-raiser. I thought Ted might be sick of answering questions like that, but he seemed grateful for the opportunity to talk about his daughter. I suspected most people in his life just didn’t want to hear about anything so grim.
I admired how my husband was both practical and concerned. I wished that I could be more like him, but I was so cold and so tired. I kept seeing an image of myself with all my limbs fused together, like a rag doll sewn up wrong.
As they talked, I kept refilling their wineglasses. I sat with my sweetest, warmest facial expression, because I hoped that Ted would look over at me and see an image of comfort. My husband asked if I would help organize a fund-raiser, and I said yes, of course, I would be more than happy to. I was really doing my best. Ted left around midnight. My husband took a shower and fell asleep right away, because of all the wine. I stayed awake until dawn, staring at his kind, unconscious face.
Three weeks later, Ted came for dinner again. This time I ordered food from a restaurant, because I didn’t want to subject such a sad man to my cooking. My husband and I had a small fight about that. He thought I was being lazy. What are you doing all day that you can’t even cook a decent meal? he probably wanted to ask. When I explained it to him, he took me in his arms and kissed the top of my head.
“I doubt Ted has much of an appetite these days. The food is just a formality.”
When Ted arrived, he was already a bit drunk. Who could blame him?
“I call the police every day. Local and state, to see if there are any updates. They talk to me like I’m some idiot. I want to yell, ‘I pay your salaries! You work for me!’ But I can’t afford to antagonize them,” Ted told us. He was a big man, maybe fifty years old, who had lost the hair on top of his head, which made him look a bit like a clown. We sat in the kitchen because the big dining room was too cold. Ted kept his jacket on.
“It’s a disgrace,” my husband replied. He wanted to write letters and make phone calls. He was a man who believed that most things could be solved by letters and phone calls.
Ted occasionally tried to have a normal conversation with me about the house, if I missed the city. I replied politely and succinctly. I knew that he didn’t really want to talk about any of that. Meadow had been gone for three months.
After dinner we switched from wine to whiskey. I wasn’t supposed to drink hard liquor because of my medications, but my husband didn’t say anything, and I sipped it carefully. It was clear that Ted was too drunk to drive home, so I set up a little bed for him in the room my husband sometimes used as an office. There was a big, comfortable couch downstairs, but I feared that the room would get too cold.
Around one in the morning my husband helped Ted upstairs. It was hard to tell in the half-light, but I thought that Ted might have been weeping.
“I hope you can get some rest,” my husband said. “Good night.”
The idea of a grown man sleeping on our squeaky, flimsy futon, in a room still full of unpacked boxes, made me so sad. I went downstairs to see if I could find any extra blankets or pillows to make him more comfortable. There was one wool throw, a wedding present, that we sometimes used when we watched television. I decided to take it up to him.
I knocked on the door.
“Come in,” said Ted.
He was sitting on the edge of the futon. His shoes were off, but he was still fully dressed. I could have just handed him the blanket, but instead I draped it around his shoulders. As I did, he pulled me toward him and stuck his cold hand up my skirt.
He was a tired, drunk old man, and I could have stopped him with a slap, but I didn’t. I looked around the room, like I hoped for someone who could tell me, Yes, this is really happening. But, of course, it was just the two of us.
He squeezed me so hard. I later thought it must have been the pain, more than anything else, that interested him. I just stood there. Part of me felt sorry for him, and part of me felt scared. Neither part of me could move. After what felt like a long time, he removed his hand and turned away from me.
I went to take a shower. My husband was already asleep. What upset me the most, I realized, was not the pain but Ted’s certainty that I would not scream. He was that sure of my pity and shame. As I crawled into bed in the darkness, I was terrified of what my brain would show me. But there was only emptiness.
The snow had fallen so heavily overnight that Ted could not get his car out of our driveway. He and my husband spent all day watching TV, playing Risk, and drinking whiskey. They ate leftovers. I pretended to be busy in bed with a book, when I was really sitting with the emptiness. For the first time I longed for one of my visions. I wanted to see Ted’s head crack open, to see myself scooping out his brain with my fingernails. It took two days for the snow to melt. Ted suggested calling a tow truck, but when my husband said that he was free to stay with us, to get some rest, he happily agreed.
On the third day, I made breakfast, a really good breakfast, home fries and bacon and eggs and tomatoes. We all sat around eating and talking and reading the newspaper. When my husband got up to use the bathroom, I leaned over and whispered in Ted’s ear.
“Your daughter is dead. Everybody knows it. She was raped and killed and left in an alley like garbage.”
Then I cleared my plate and went upstairs.