I’m captivated by the story, and the abandonment of a child, though clearly fictional, stirs up something inside of me. I imagine Penelope being lost in the dark of night, endlessly wandering in unfamiliar surroundings. But I see myself in Ludvig’s resolve and like a needle scratching off a record, my instincts are roused: the drawing in that book, who put it there, what was it meant to convey? I’m unwavering and being unwavering is one of my strong suits. Edward will tell you that. Something is afoot. A blind woman could see that.
* * *
• • •
The alarm clock LED display is the only light in the room. Marleen’s nightly preparation of the house plays out: doors close, cabinets bang, the venetian blinds go krrr-krrr-krrr-krrr. Footsteps approach.
8:45.
Marleen presents the small porcelain dish with my medication. I scoop up the four pills but instead of dropping them into my mouth, I tuck them underneath my thumb, pressing them into the soft part of my palm. I tilt my head back and take a sip of water. As Marleen pulls the duvet taut at the end of the bed, I stow the pills underneath my pillow.
8:46
Marleen’s heels click on the hardwood floors. In the parlor, she closes the drapes and slides the metal hook of the tassels back on the tieback. Her heels make their way through the apartment with long strides and intermittent pauses. The hinges of the linen closet shriek.
8:58.
The toilet in the powder room flushes and the lid clanks shut. From the kitchen familiar sounds of putting away dishes fill the house. Marleen’s shadow passes by my bedroom twice—she has turned off the lights in the hallway by then—her keys clink, a sign she’s about to leave.
I do something I’ve never done before. I stand by the bedroom door and watch her.
Marleen places something on the fireplace mantel, slides it toward the back, where her hands pause, fiddle around as if she’s making sure it sits in a very specific spot. Keys jingle again and weather stripping sweeps across the marble floor. The front door lock snaps in place. A gate slams in the distance and for a long time there are no sounds.
9:08.
Sliding my fingers underneath the pillow, I dig until I hold the four pills in my hand. There’s a tiny orange pill, a statin. The white oval is an anti-inflammatory for my hip. The round pale yellow one is an allergy pill I was prescribed after I complained about itchy eyes. The pastel green round pill, I have no idea what it is.
9:09.
I wait.
9:14.
My bare feet don’t cause so much as a creak on the hardwood floors. The bedroom door swings open without a sound. In the parlor, I push up the dimmer and the light fixture spreads a soft shimmer across the room. The drapes are closed.
On top of the fireplace sits an array of items that don’t quite go together. A vase, candlesticks, a statue—I’ve developed a fondness for the depiction of the woman cradling a child in her arms—and as I run my finger down it, I am surprised it is cold to the touch. It’s not resin after all, is it? Off the cuff, I push it aside a few inches. It’s heavy but it budges though it bumps the bottom of the vase which I barely keep from tumbling to the ground. A key is tucked behind it, a gold key with long teeth and I am not sure if this is the item Marleen was placing so perfectly. Is it one of the spare keys she leaves in the house in case she misplaces hers? I have told her a copy in a kitchen drawer would suffice.
Marleen misplaced her set of keys before and once locked herself out of the house. There were meltdowns during which she was almost in tears, once pounding on the front door. Another time she rapped on the window. I didn’t question her theatrical behavior nor did I try to understand it though I thought it to be overly dramatic. She does get worked up about things a lot, I wish she didn’t but that’s part of her constitution.
I attempt to insert the key into the front door but it doesn’t fit. The only other door with a lock is the one leading out of the storage room.
There, boxes are stacked on top of one another. Though the room is a mess, it seems methodical somehow as if the boxes are supposed to create a path. The light entering from the hallway is enough for me to look around, and though I’ve been in here many times—usually poring over a box Marleen has picked out—this time the shadows are different, the chaos seems to be held at bay by the limited light. There’s the door behind a tower of boxes, but it is not an interior door, it looks sturdy, and once I make my way down what feels like an aisle in a grocery store, I put my hand on it. It’s made of metal, like an exterior door. I slide the key into the keyhole without resistance. It grips and unlocks.
The opening leads outside, into the breezeway where the dead birds were. As I peer around the doorframe, moths as large as humming birds whir around electric lanterns emitting a faint glow. Oscillating carbon filament bulbs swing rapidly from side to side, mimicking a flame. Lampposts cast shadows, elongated, dark, and menacing. There’s a flashlight in the kitchen drawer but using it would only draw attention to myself.
I step into the night and look up into the starry sky.
Edward and I own a cabin in Angel Fire, New Mexico. We spent a week there now and then, whenever he could make the time. I called it a dip into the mountains and at night it was so dark we once observed the zodiacal light. One must understand how uncommon such an occasion is during which millions of light particles combine to create a cone so long it touches the horizon like a worldly connection to the stars above.
Just look, Edward said, one arm wrapped tightly around me as he pointed at the band of light in the night sky. Do you know how rare this is? he added.
Almost as if we’re chosen, isn’t it? I asked and meant it.
The sky is for everyone, Donna, he said.
We are chosen, I insisted and Edward didn’t object.
My thoughts are caught up in the memories of the cabin when on the other side of the courtyard, beyond the lawn, I hear a clacking sound. I step behind a large myrtle. A woman is coming down the walkway across the lawn, dragging a bag behind her. A clacking of bottles on the lawn, all the louder for the absence of daylight and people. I recognize her. I don’t want to embarrass her and remain in the shadows.
Vera has mentioned her peculiar fascination with people’s garbage—but don’t go around gossiping about it, I don’t need people talking; she uses it for inspiration for her writing, her exact words were, I can tell a lot from people’s garbage—but I imagined her retrieving papers or discarded mail. I never so much as thought that she’d go through garbage like a raccoon in the middle of the night. Vera tows the bag to her front door, then slogs it over the threshold, a key scrapes in the lock, and her front porch goes dark.
That’s what you get for snooping, I think. You see things you can’t unsee.
A light comes on in what seems like my foyer. I rush across the lawn. My blinds are shut only halfway. Are people talking inside? I step closer but there’s a concrete stoop below the window and I misjudge its height. My right foot, muddy and wet and smeared with filth, taps against it. I stumble, hit the ground, and break the fall with my left knee. I manage to get up. With my heart pounding, I shoot around the corner but before I can slip back into the breezeway and the storage room, I hear footsteps. They sound out of nowhere, there isn’t a buildup in volume or a quickening of pace, they are just suddenly there.