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I nodded. One thing I was starting to notice about being awake all the time was the way in which seemingly little things grew bigger by the day. Noisier, harder to ignore. The ticking of the clock in the corner was deafening, like a long nail steadily tapping against glass. The dust in the air was unusually visible, little specks of lint floating slowly across my field of vision like someone had tampered with my settings, distorting everything into high-contrast slow motion. I could smell the remnants of Dr. Harris’s lunch, little particles of canned tuna wafting through his office and into my nostrils, fishy and brackish, making my esophagus squeeze.
“Did anything extraordinary happen that night?”
Extraordinary.
Until I had woken up the next morning, there hadn’t been anything extraordinary about it. It had been painfullyordinary, in fact. I remember changing into my favorite pair of pajamas, pushing my hair back with a headband, and scrubbing the makeup from my skin. And then I had put down Mason, of course. I had read him a story, rocking him to sleep the way I always did, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember which story it was. I remember standing in his bedroom, days later, after the yellow police tape had been snipped from the doorway, the silence of his nursery somehow making the room seem to expand to triple its actual size. I remember standing there, staring at his bookshelf—atGoodnight MoonandThe Very Hungry CaterpillarandWhere the Wild Things Are,desperately trying to remember which one it was. What my last words to my son had been.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t remember. That’s how ordinary it was.
“Our son,” Ben had interjected, placing his hand on my knee. I looked over at my husband, remembering that he was there. “He was taken that night from his bedroom. While we were sleeping.”
Dr. Harris had to have known, of course. The entire state of Georgia had known—the entire country, even. Then he had bowed his head the way most people seemed to do when they realized their mistake and didn’t know what else to say, his neck mimicking the snap of a shutting lid. Conversation closed.
“But Izzy has always had… problems,” Ben continued. Suddenly, I felt like I was in detention. “With sleep. Even before the insomnia. Kind of the opposite problem, actually.”
Dr. Harris had looked at me then, studying me, like I was some kind of riddle to be cracked.
“About fifty percent of sleep disorder cases are related to anxiety, depression, or some kind of psychosocial distress or disorder, so this makes sense, given what you’ve been through,” he had said, clicking his pen. “Insomnia is no exception.”
I remember looking out the window, the sun high in the sky. My eyelids were feeling heavier with every passing second; my brain, cloudier, as though I were enveloped in a blanket of fog. The pen was still clicking, amplified in my ears like a ticking time bomb ready to blow.
“We’ll run some tests,” he said at last. “Maybe get you on some medication. We’ll have you back to normal in no time.”
I’m reaching for Roscoe’s leash when I catch a glimpse of myself in the hallway mirror and wince. It’s an automatic reaction, like jerking your fingers away from a hot stove. I should be gentler on myself, I know. I’ve been through a lot, but the lack of sleep has become so apparent on my face it’s hard not to notice. I look like I’ve aged years within months, with the new bags hanging heavy beneath my eyes, droopy and worn. The thin swathes of skin beneath my tear ducts have morphed from a warm olive to a deep, dark purple, like a marbling bruise, whilethe rest of my face has taken on a grayish tone, like chicken that’s been left in the fridge too long. I’ve lost twenty pounds in twelve months, which doesn’t seem likethatmuch, but when you’re already tall and waifish, it shows. It shows in my cheeks, my neck. My hips—or, rather, my lack thereof. My hair, usually a deep, glossy brown, looks like it’s dying, too, the ends split clean in half like a splintered tree that’s been struck by lightning. The color growing duller by the day.
I force myself to turn around and fasten Roscoe’s leash to his collar before stepping back outside, the cool night air making the skin on my arms prickle. Then I lock the door behind us and take a right, setting out on our usual path.
Isle of Hope is a tiny little spit of land, barely two square miles. I’ve walked the entire thing hundreds of times, memorized the way the Skidaway River slithers across the east side like a water moccasin, shiny and slick. The way the oak trees have formed a giant archway over the Bluff, their limbs getting mangled together in time like the lacing together of arthritic fingers. But it is amazing how completely a place changes in the dark: Roads that you’ve lived on your entire adult life look different, like instead of stepping onto smooth pavement, you’re walking straight into the murky river itself. You start to notice light poles that you used to ignore, the dimming and subsequent brightening as you work your way between each one the only way to gauge distance or depth. Shadows become shapes; every tiny movement is eye-catching, like the dance of dry leaves on the ground or the legs of phantom children pushing an empty swing, chains squeaking in the breeze. Windows are dark, curtains drawn. I try to imagine the life inside each house as I pass—the gentle stirring of a child as they sleep, a nightlight casting otherworldly shapes against the wall. Spouses in bed together, skin-to-skin, bodies tangled tight between the sheets—or perhaps pushed as far apart as humanly possible, separated by an invisible cold line drawn down the center.
As for me, I’m familiar with both.
And then there are the creatures of the night. The living things,like myself, that crawl out of their hiding spots and come alive in the absence of others. Raccoons scurrying across the shadows, rooting through trash. The distant hoot of an owl or snakes slithering out of their shady places and leaving behind nothing but their own dried skin. The scream of crickets and cicadas and other invisible things that pulse through the grass with a steady determination, like the pumping of blood through veins.
I approach the marsh at the edge of my neighborhood and stop, staring out at the inky water I can hear lapping against the shore. I was born in Beaufort, just barely over an hour from here. I’ve lived on the water my entire life, learned to swim with minnows tickling my feet and the sound of shrimp skidding across the surface at low tide. I’ve tied chicken necks to a string and let them dangle for hours, waiting patiently until I felt that familiar prickle of life on the other end of the line, watching as countless animals gnawed their way toward their own demise: a sick entertainment that, even then, I didn’t understand.
I breathe in the smell of the marsh now, one single whiff immediately transporting me back there. Back home. To the way the salt takes to the air, making it thick like buttermilk. To the pluff mud’s familiar stench of rot like a decaying tooth. Because that’s what it is, after all. That’s the smell of decomposition; the liquid kiss of life and death.
Millions of living things dying together, and millions of other things calling it home.
I stare into the distance and feel my arm rise instinctively, touching the delicate patch of skin behind my ear. The spot I always gravitate to when I’m stuck in a memory.Thismemory. I try to ignore the twist in my stomach, that feeling of someone plunging their hand into my insides and grabbing them tightly, refusing to let go.
I look down at Roscoe, at the way he’s standing just at the edge of the water. He’s staring into the darkness, too, his eyes trained on something in the distance.
“C’mon,” I say, giving his leash a tug. “Let’s go home.”
We make our way back, and once we step inside, I shut the front door, lock the deadbolt, and fill up Roscoe’s water bowl before pushing various leftovers around in the fridge. Then I pull out a Tupperware container of spaghetti, open the lid, and sniff. The wet noodles flop into a bowl, still molded together in an oblong tube, and I thrust it into the microwave, staring at the clock as my dinner spins. Those little digital numbers glowing in the dark.
3:14 a.m.
When the microwave beeps, I pull the bowl out and bring it into my dining room, pushing aside the various papers and folders and sticky notes with midnight musings scratched across their surfaces with dried-out pens. The chair screeches as I pull it out, and Roscoe ambles over to me at the noise, resting at my feet as I jab my fork into the pasta and spin.
Then I stare at the wall, my skin prickling as it stares back.
I look into the smiling eyes of my neighbors, their pictures clipped from church directories and faculty yearbooks; their statements and alibis and hobbies and schedules pinned into place. I analyze the dead eyes of mug shots; the expressions of the strangers whose pictures I’ve plucked from police blotters or torn from newspaper articles that now decorate my dining room wall like some kind of high-school-girl collage—an obsession I don’t know how to tame. So instead, I stare. I wonder. I try to gaze past the paper and into their minds, reading their thoughts. Because, like those people on the plane, someone out there has a secret.
Someone,somewhere, knows the truth.
CHAPTER FOUR
