I’ve made a terrible meal—overcooked chicken, wilted green beans, bland instant mashed potatoes—but Tom eats it all valiantly, complimenting the “delicious food” as he takes one forkful after another. I’ve been fighting back the tears that have come and gone all afternoon, but Tom’s habitual kindness unlocks them; they slide down my face. They come faster and faster, until I’m gasping with sobs. I put my face in my hands to try to hide, but there’s no hiding now.
“Judith! What is it?” Tom’s fork clatters to his plate as he reaches for my wrist. He grabs it too hard and I cry out, as though he were the man in the crosswalk. Or the man in the long blue car. Or the caller. The dark figure in my pictures. All the men or the one man who torments me. Tom lets go, and through my hands I can see the stricken look on his face.
“Judy. What is it? What happened?” I can only shake my head back and forth. When Rosie died, I cried like this, and again at Tom’s hospital bedside. I cried like this when Tom Junior was born, when the nurse held the tiny bundle out to me. I held him and wept out all the pain, all the hardship and horror of my childhood. The kind nurse gave me tissues but she should have brought a bucket and mop instead. Tom, beside me, made soft shushing sounds, as if I were a baby myself. I kept saying through my tears,I’m all right, I’m all right. Just overwhelmed.But since Tom didn’t know the whole story of my youth, I couldn’t articulatethe immense and complicated joy I felt, knowing my child would grow up with two loving parents in a stable home.
When I was done sobbing, it felt like I’d gone through a monumental cleansing. As if the flood of my tears had washed out the past like it was a rotten bridge. The feeling ebbed, but I always remembered it and the soft peace that descended after my wild sobs. I floated in that space for as long as I could.
When I’ve quieted a little, and regained my composure, I let my hands fall and look Tom squarely in the eye.
“There’s a man who’s been—calling me,” I say quietly. I can’t tell him the worst of it, the whole truth of it. The words won’t come out—just as they haven’t whenever I’ve tried to tell him about my early attacker.
“He says terrible things. I don’t know why he’s calling me, or why it upset me just now, but he does and it did.” Tom, whose face has reddened, asks me what the man says, and the lie comes quickly:
“He says he wants to…do things to me. He calls me names.” That part, at least, is true. Tom pushes back his chair and stands, pacing in our small dining room.
“When does he call?”
“In the middle of the day, or the late afternoon.”
“We should call the police.” He looks furious and certain, but my blood freezes. Tom doesn’t know my history with the police: how they accused me of letting my attacker in, of being complicit in my own torment. How, later, they suggested I’d made it all up—and my grandmother believed them. The whole town believed them, eventually, when the man never materialized, and no witnesses came forward. I can’t bear to have the police here, digging and prodding, doubting me, uncovering my past. I shake my head slowly.
“No police,” I say in a hoarse whisper. Tom sits down in his chair again, and holds my cold, trembling hands in his.
“We should call them, just to get it on record,” he says softly.
“It won’t help. And besides, it’s just some…idiot. A troubled teenager,” I say, lying again and scrambling to seem composed.
Tom gives my hands a squeeze and nods once. “Okay. We won’t call. Not yet. But from now on, when you’re home alone, don’t answer the telephone. Just let it ring.”
“I can’t do that, Tom. What if something happened to you? Or Tom Junior.”
“Well, if you pick up and it’s him, hang upimmediately. Don’t listen to a word. And tell me when I get home—or call me at work.” I nod, relieved that he’s moved past calling the police—though I shouldn’t be relieved at all. Nothing’s changed or improved; I’m still alone with my pursuer and I’ve told my husband a slim half-truth. I tell myself I’m shielding Tom to save his health, but really, would it hurt or kill him to know? Why hold so tightly to my secrets?
Because I love them, just a little? Cherish them as wholly mine?
Do I love the man, the shadow, too? I wonder, and a shiver runs through me. Tom sees and rubs my forearms with his warm hands. I give him a watery smile. He’s the man here with me now in our cozy home; the main presence in my life. But there are others, and the others find me everywhere I am, everywhere I go. They circle the two of us, surrounding us, drawing close. But Tom doesn’t know.
There is no hope for you, I think, looking at my Tom like he’s some kind of doomed suitor. He just gives me a lovingsmile.
23.
While washing the next morning’s breakfast dishes, I think of the man’s terrifying, tan hand spread against the white leather car seat and remember taking pictures of his face.
A plate slips and shatters in the sink.
“Judith?” Tom calls from the other room.
“I’m fine, it’s fine,” I sing back, trying to sound carefree, like the woman who’s opened her heart and now feels as light as a bird. The pointed shards say otherwise. I stare at one in particular—a perfect triangle with a sharp tip—for a long while before dropping it into the trash with the rest, then washing the tiny fragments down the drain.
“What happened?” Tom asks, standing in the doorway.
“Just an accident. A soapy dish slipped. It happens.” I smile.
Once I’ve sent Tom off to work with a kiss, I walk slowly down the cellar stairs to the darkroom, gripping the thin railing as I go. I tremble at the door and make a promise to myself:If I have a clear picture of him, I will tell Tom everything. We will go to the police. I move through the steps mindlessly: mix the chemicals, load and soak the film, rinse it, hang the negatives to dry. After lunch I print the negatives, then wait impatiently for them to dry. Once enough time has passed, I rip them down from the line and take them upstairs. First I see the hard proofof my mediocre shooting day—then I hold my breath and squint at the shots taken inside the car.
There’s nothing in any of them. Only a blue and white blur, something that might—or might not—be the dashboard of his car. Alongside my frustration, I feel a sliver of relief as sharp as the plate shard:Now I won’t tell Tom anything. I won’t have to visit the police.
24.
