Do not turn around, I tell myself, turn around and he’ll know that you’ve clocked him.
I duck into an unfamiliar subway entrance. I know this is a mistake as soon as I do it because unfamiliar routes and deviations could mean blind alleyways and unexpected obstacles. Stupid me. Panic is taking over. I am losing control.
Thankfully there’s nothing but a subway platform and a train about to depart. I race for it and my gym bag slips from my shoulder and falls to the ground. I leave it where it lands, breaking into a woeful half-jog, desperate to reach the train before it takes off, and I do, a millisecond before the doors close, narrowly avoiding catching my cane in the gap between the train and the platform.
Breathless, I look up through the dirty windows as the train rolls away. No one is there. Just my blue and gray gym bag on the platform, sitting there like a bomb about to explode.
8
In the beginning, after the incident, I used to see him all the time. Everywhere. In the grocery store, at the hospital, the courthouse, a face in a passing cab, my apartment building. I’d feel the terror of being choked all over again, the tightness around my throat, the suffocation of the dirt on top of my body. I had panic attacks on an almost daily basis. Lorna said it was natural and that with time it would pass. She said that the brain is remarkable and can’t tell the difference between the real and the intensely imagined. That didn’t help. If you can’t tell the difference between what’s real and what isn’t, how are you ever supposed to know if someone is really following you or not?
I reach up to check the latch on the bedroom window. The morning sun is pushing its way through the glass. My watch alarm beeps. The 8 a.m. reminder. I have to get to court.
Satisfied the window is secure, I step back and the sleeve of my suit skims soot-colored dust from the window architrave. Cursing, I go to the bathroom and turn on the faucet to clean it off. I catch my face in the mirror, the lank hair, the dark circles under my eyes, the grim, downward pull of my mouth. It’s been weeks since I’ve slept properly, and last night, after the scare, I couldn’t stop myself from checking. I was like two selves, an observer and a crazy person, circling each other like dogs. Rather than stop at my normal three times, I checked four, then five times. I couldn’t help myself. It was as if someone had taken over my body. I stunk from the gym and needed a shower and had to prepare for the next day at court. But on and on I went, checking the blinds, the locks on the doors, closet, and windows. Checking and checking and checking. So the call to Eileen Mercer about the disclosure issue never happened.
I think back to last night, to my gym bag on the platform, a symbol of my stupidity and weakness, and get angry all over again. Angry that I lost control and let irrational fear get the better of me.
I had barely managed to get home without completely falling to pieces. My purse was in that bag. My identification. Driver’s license. Court credentials. A photograph of my face. Where I lived. I couldn’t believe I had been so stupid. Keeping all that sensitive information in one place was a total rookie mistake. In my mind’s eye, I could see him, crossing the platform, sweeping up the bag, retreating to some dark corner to rifle through its contents, grinning a big Bingo grin when he’d discovered he’d hit pay dirt on the whereabouts of Amelia Kellaway.
And that was my second mistake. I went home. I was so relieved to have my phone with my subway pass and apartment keys in my jacket pocket that I never thought through the implications of going back to the apartment. It wasn’t until I opened my apartment door that I realized how dumb I had been. He could have beat me home. He could’ve been in the apartment, lying in wait.
But as I stood there frozen to the spot, heart smashing against my chest, I thought back to the man on the street. And the more I thought about him, the more unsure I became. Was it really him? Yes, the height and build were similar, but the posture was different, the coloring, his gait too. The man in the street was younger, more sprightly than a man in his early fifties. And he would be even older now, more worn down by life like I was. As I stood there, thinking, I was reminded of something Lorna had said: my memories had been distorted by trauma and time. Simply put, I couldn’t trust my own eyes anymore. It probably wasn’t him, just my overactive negative-bias imagination, superimposing his face on another person. And my bag? Well, whoever the lucky recipient was would probably be more concerned with the cash and credit cards than where I lived.
So I began to relax a little and made a few cautious steps into the apartment and that’s when I saw it. My purse on the kitchen counter next to my work satchel. In the rush to get to the gym, I must have left it there. The relief was overwhelming, like a hundred-pound weight had been lifted off my shoulders. The only thing in that gym bag would have been a bottle of water, some tampons, a sweat towel, and a change of clothes.
But I still went mad with the checking, and now it’s after 8 a.m. and I’m due in court and I’m so tired I can barely think. A tear leaks from my eye. I bat it away roughly. How did things get so out of control?
I put down the toilet seat lid and sit and hold my head in my hands. How am I going to make it through the hearing today? Maybe I should resign. Stay in my apartment all day. Stay here forever.
Then I think of Susie and the other little girls and the monster who thought he was so clever he was going to get away with what he’d done and then do it all over again.
I rise. No. It is up to me. There isn’t anyone else who can do this. I rinse my sleeve in the basin and get ready to leave.
9
Courtrooms have a distinctive smell. Sweat and anxiety. The angst of the defendants, the witnesses, the victims, even the lawyers. It somehow leaches into the walls, embeds itself into the upholstery and fixtures. No one comes away clean, especially me.
I’m not a natural public speaker. I hate the way everyone stares when I talk, how they watch me limp across the courtroom to address a witness, how my voice shakes and makes me sound weak.
“Well, Ms. Kellaway?”
It’s Judge Brown. An attractive woman in her mid-sixties with a severe brunette bob. Rumor has it, Judge Brown frequents S&M clubs after hours, but as far as I’m concerned, she’s still a very capable judge and doesn’t suffer fools gladly, although the biggest fool right now is probably me.
I look back at Judge Brown and remain rooted to my seat. I feel an emptiness in the pit of my stomach. I’ve had nothing to eat (I’m pretty sure black coffee doesn’t count), and now I’m thinking that was a big mistake. I’m usually so good before a trial. My go-to is a simple eggs-over-easy on grainy toast, a nice protein/carb combo for sustained energy across the day. But this morning, even if I felt like eating, I didn’t have time, and I can feel my blood sugar levels plummeting already.
Another thing is deodorant. Or more specifically, a lack thereof. In my haste, I forgot to apply my “shower fresh” Dove roll-on and now my nose is twitching at the offensiveness of my own rank body odor, made all the worse because today I seem to be sweating buckets beneath my sensible navy suit.
A stone’s throw away is the defense table, and I wonder if Eileen Mercer can smell me too. She’s certainly looking at me, left eyebrow arched high on her forehead, toying with the creamy string of lustrous pearls around her chubby neck. Close to seventy, the woman is still as sharp as a tack. Not a smidge over five-foot-one, she has the figure of someone who spends most of their day at their desk. Her rotundness works in her favor. That, combined with her seniority, somehow seems to add to her authority.