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I take it in—the musty smell, the cheap paneling over thin walls. The scratched tabletop, its wood grain a sticker half peeled away, revealing the white of the backing.
Joan comes out of the bedroom with her arms full of clothes and says, “Get me a trash bag from under the kitchen sink.”
I do as I’m told, thinking about where West would have kept his things. What he might have called his own and how he would have protected it.
He never wanted me to see this.
My cell rings. I fumble getting it out of my pocket, inadvertently accepting the call. My father’s voice says, “Caroline?”
“Hey, Dad.”
“I’ve been calling you all day.”
Joan comes out with another load of clothes. I squeeze the phone to my shoulder and hold open the trash bag. She stuffs the clothes inside.
“Sorry, I’m keeping busy.”
“Doing what?”
Trespassing.
Invading the privacy of the man I love.
Banging my head against a brick wall.
Only I don’t think West is a brick wall, as much as he looks like one. The bricks he surrounds himself with are no more real than the wood-grain surface of the tabletop.
“I can’t talk right now,” I tell my dad.
“When can you talk?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I’ll call you.”
“You’ll have to do better than that. I set up a meeting for Tuesday, because I have some questions about the complaint. I need you to weigh in on a few things before then. Will you be back? Or …”
I can’t listen. Outside, the heavy thump of bass draws closer. Lights cut across the window and pan over the wall, illuminating a dark decoration against the wallpaper.
A spatter pattern.
Blood.
I disconnect the phone.
Joan comes out with a handful of jewelry and Frankie’s Skip-Bo cards. “Let’s get out of here,” she says.
I want to move. Escape. But I stand another minute in the beating heart of West’s nightmares, because for so many years, escape was impossible for him.
We ride back to Joan’s house with the windows down. I turn my phone over and over in my hand, thinking about my dad.
West’s dad is dead. I saw his blood.
Joan must have seen it, too. Her son’s life, spilled across the walls. Wasted.
I came here to help, but there’s so little that’s in my power to do. All I can do is stay. Love him. Hope.
I carry the bags up the stairs so Frankie will see them when she wakes up.
My fourth day in Silt is the funeral.
