As he turned onto his street, a neighbor passed him. Edward panicked, didn’t know if he should smile or wave or not do anything at all. It might come up later, how he acted in the aftermath of it all. Edward slowed and lifted his fingers in a greeting while his hand remained on the steering wheel, that’s what he’d normally do. He’d have to get used to that—being normal.
When he reached his driveway, he sat in the car and his body wouldn’t move. He stared at the inlayed brick, the house number, the name, Hawthorne Court, the cursive letters—what was it with people and naming houses, he’d never understand. Something struck him: it was the first time he’d come home and Donna wasn’t waiting for him—burden or gift, he wasn’t sure.
He cut the engine and got out, unlocked the front door, but his hand hovered over the doorknob. He had no way of knowing if he’d done the right thing but it was the only thing to do, or so he told himself, and therefore he should be absolved from guilt.
6
DONNA
Marleen extends a round porcelain bowl with pills. I scoop them up, put them in my mouth, and take a sip of water from a glass on the nightstand. She leaves the room and I lean back and listen to the sounds of the house. Marleen karate-chops the throw pillows on the couch (I don’t care for that look but I won’t correct her) and wipes the kitchen counters (there is the tearing of a disinfectant wipe from the container, followed by the sound of the garbage can lid clinking shut shortly thereafter). Her heels clack, make their way down the hallway and into the powder room, followed by a silence during which she undoubtedly straightens towels on the shelf.
The house phone rings. Marleen’s explanation about someone punching in the wrong numbers at the gate sounds contrived. I want to get up, hurry from my bedroom down the hallway and into the kitchen, want to get to the bottom of this—want to grab the receiver and demand to know who is on the other end of the line—but the phone stops ringing. I don’t want to be in this state of mistrust but—
That book on the nightstand. I hadn’t noticed it before. Its pages are tightly bound, I can barely see the beginning of the lines. As the spine cracks open, the glue dissolves and pages are loosening before my eyes. A piece of paper falls out. One of those lists I make to remind me of all the things I have to do? I unfold it. It’s a drawing. A child’s drawing. Penelope’s drawing. Large heads on small bodies, fingers like tentacles pointing upward, then turning into scribbles all over the page as if she were trying to erase it all. Dozens of colored markers, yet she drew exclusively in black and red. Never a rainbow, never a field of flowers. When I carefully probed about the intended meaning, she just shrugged. Or said it’s what’s in her head. Or something like that. So many years have passed, I can’t read into it now.
Ch’trik. The front door locks.
There’s a pull behind my eyes. My limbs are heavy, something lures me to sleep.
It seems as if—no, I’m pretty sure of it—there’s a sleeping pill among the statins and the anti-inflammatories. A sleeping pill so potent that I don’t recall ever having woken up in the middle of the night since I’ve moved here.
My last thought is of Penelope. And like so often, the last image is of her face, evanescent, as if behind a bridal veil—always a bridal veil—and it’s hard to interpret. I want to think it’s a clue that she’s happy somewhere. But I also see a slick wet pool of red. As if on cue, my heartbeat slows to a peaceful rhythm, and like counting backward before surgery, the curtains come down all at once. First the world as I know it is there, then it isn’t.
It’s not until morning, until I get out of bed and step on the book, that I remember the drawing. For a few minutes it all feels like a dream. I protest but Marleen gathers everything and stuffs it all into a garbage bag and the garbage bag into a bin.
Between keeping the house neat and tossing the drawing, I wonder if Marleen was out of line on that one. I’ll mention it to Vera later, she is good at putting things into perspective. I do confide in her a lot, maybe more than I should. Edward wouldn’t approve if he knew how much I tell her about my former life. He’d turned into a strangely private person and I can admit that now, he went from clearheaded to paranoid. Edward being paranoid—that goes against all reason, or does it?
* * *
• • •
Occasionally Vera reads from one of her novels in the space off the lobby with fireplaces and immaculately polished hardwood floors. It’s a special occasion and that afternoon, I get my nails done in a salon in the main building. I take my time picking out a color, nothing fancy, a nude shade will do, yet I’m forever undecided—Flesh, Ballerina, Anonymous, Jade Rose, Incognito—and later, we take our seats in rows of chairs.
It has taken me quite some time to warm up to Vera. For the longest I couldn’t remember her name, Valerie or Vivian or Viola, but once we got talking, we felt comfortable around each other. Vera and I, we both had a moment in the limelight. Vera was catapulted into fame almost overnight with a book, and I, I was Miss Texas 1985. My winning gown and sash are now memorialized in a shadow box. I just had the gown dry-cleaned and reframed and Penelope has yet to see it in my bedroom above the fireplace.
I’m always looking forward to Vera’s readings, her novels have garnered critical acclaim in Europe, there’s a lot of loathing and suffering and I feel an instant kinship with her characters as they seem to be in a constant state of existential threat.
A podium has been set up, staff in black pants and white shirts pass trays around. The hors d’oeuvres leave a lot to be desired, avocado and crab toast and some shrimp on a stick. I must mention this to Vera, she relies on me to tell her such things, her head is always in the clouds and I’m her voice of reason in these matters as she is mine when it comes to my emotions.
Vera takes the podium. She commands it, her oval tortoiseshell glasses high on the bridge of her nose, pausing intermittently for maximum impact, the breaks arranged so perfectly that her words connect instantly with the audience.
Vera reads an excerpt of one of her novels. Ludvig, a boy from a remote farm in Sweden, is expected to slaughter a pig but he dreads the blood, the taking of a life. To teach him a lesson, his family abandons him in a vast and surreal landscape. He sets out on a path, past rolling hills, a setting as dramatic as his feelings about nature, and ends up in the mountains, where he encounters a sounder of starving boars and witnesses a wolf devour them. He could intervene but he doesn’t and so the boars meet their fate.
I watch the people seated in front of me, the way their heads snap sideways, making eye contact during the gory parts. Throats are clearing, there’s twitching and sneezing, not everyone enjoys this violent and dark tale. In front of me a couple exchanges glances during the grisly tearing apart of the boars, behind me I hear nervous tappings of feet, and a couple of people get up and leave the room. Two women talk too loudly—their voices travel in the large space—and are asked to leave. There’s a loud huff from a woman behind me. “Why is she doing this?” she asks, and the person next to her whispers in her ear. I throw a dismissive look at them, then focus my attention on Vera.