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He’s a ghost.
She hired the first attorney who called her back, appreciating the woman’s matter-of-fact tone and derision of the police.
“Cops,” the attorney scoffed. “They show up again—and they will, I promise you that! You don’t say a thing. You give them my name and number and that’s it. I’ll get in touch with the family department, try and light a fire, make it clear this is one they can get off their plate quick. But I’ll warn you, they’re as backlogged as everyone else, understaffed with people calling in sick. It’ll take longer than you want, and longer than it should, to get your kids home. In the meantime, meet with that psychiatrist. You want to show you’re getting help. You’ll want someone willing to attest to your competence.”
The locksmith snuck looks at her battered, marked face as shewrote his check, but asked no questions. The alarm installers walked her through the new system. Was she sure, was she really sure, she understood it?
“So, you had a break-in?” The team leader eyed her damage with open interest. “What happened?”
“Guy broke in.” She shrugged.
“Betcha wish you had put all this inbefore, huh?” he asked. “Bad guy wouldn’t’ve tried anything. And worst case, you would have gotten him on camera.”
“So what you’re saying is it’s my fault he broke in,” she said lightly, watching for his reaction as though he were a bug in a jar.Tap, tap, tap.
“Oh, well, no, no! Not saying that of course. No one deserves…” He waved his hand in midair as if to circle her body, her injuries. “But it’s true what they say, ounce of prevention, pound of cure!”
“No one ever thinks what you’ve done is enough, if something bad happens,” she said.
“I didn’t mean to upset you.”
She cocked her head at him, said coolly, “Do I sound upset?”
“Maybe—is your husband around? Want me to show him the system?” His eyes flitted behind her, hopeful a man might appear, someone reasonable.
“He died,” she said.
“Holy shit,” the installer said, eyes at last turning human, seeing her. “In the break-in?”
“No.”
The installer shifted uncomfortably, looking around like the house might be infected, flinching as his eyes skated over her markings, and asked, “Was he sick?”
“He tripped and fell.”
“That killed him?”
She saw an opening that would let her take advantage of the man’s pity, his guilt, his clear opinion she wasn’t quite competent.
“You know how to jump a car? Or how to put on a spare tire? With him gone, hurt like I am, I can’t do it myself.”
Within twenty minutes her car had a spare, and her husband’s car battery was alive again. The alarm installers left, puffed up with the sense they’d helped a damsel in distress. She activated the new security system, locked the house with her new key.
More metal. More safe metal.
As she drove under twenty miles an hour to the repair shop to avoid blowing the ancient spare, the furious honking of the cars behind her, the yelled expletives from the cars that passed her, were just so much background noise. She sang along to the radio. Smiled about how the doctor had been right, after all, her vision repaired enough that she felt safe. At least on such a familiar road. At least going so slowly.
She wondered if life would always be this way. Panic and fear that a window might have been left open, listening to the sounds of her own house with her heart racing, clinging to metal comforts to sleep, to function, but everything else? It all seemed so simple, so easy. How had she ever cared about irritated drivers? About the condescension of the contractors she paid? About what anyone thought of her? She sat up straighter in the driver’s seat to relieve the aching pressure at the small of her back. Thought with longing of the way her husband used to massage her shoulders, kneading out the kinks.
It would be better now, with the alarm installed. With the new locks. She had to make it better. She gripped the steering wheel tight.
You can’t let the Corner take your home from you. Don’t let him take that comfort from you. Pollute your memories.
The past two years spun through her head. The kids jumping in leaf piles. Her husband’s endearing but baffling obsession with perfecting the grass of the lawn. Her daughter eating tomatoes out of their summer garden. The children’s snow forts, pillow forts, blanket forts. Cooking pizza in the beehive oven. Winter fires in the enormous fireplace.
No. He won’t get that. You won’t let him take that.
At the repair shop, she drank cup after cup of coffee, noting but choosing to ignore the woman behind the desk gawking at her. It was oddly preferable to assume people stared because of her injuries rather than at the skipping white traces of her vitiligo.
