Linda switched on the lights surrounding the wall-sized mirror in her bathroom. Staring at her reflection, she immediately focused her attention on the areas around her eyes and the corners of her mouth for any signs of trouble. A few years before – immediately following surgery she’d had to correct the imperfections in the pretty though not quite beautiful face she was born with — she consulted a professional cosmetician on how best to take advantage of the results. As a consequence the woman had produced a detailed chart that analyzed the relative strengths and weaknesses of each feature of Linda’s face and how best to either highlight or soften it.
And she had lived by it ever since.
After satisfying herself that there had been no new deterioration since her even more detailed examination the night before; she then selected the cleansers, conditioners, moisturizers, and makeup she would need for the day ahead, and set to work.
When she finished, she threw a gauzy dressing gown on over her negligee, and slipping her feet into a pair of silver-colored slippers, went downstairs.
Linda had the morning routine down to a science. And so, as usual, she had the table set, the coffee prepared, the juice poured, and the pancake batter made, even before her husband and daughter came into the kitchen and took their places at the table.
Within minutes Linda made a stack of pancakes for each, which she then covered with a generous portion of maple syrup before setting the almost overflowing plates down in front of them.
“So when’s the new maid starting?”
“Today,” Linda replied airily.
“Well let’s hope you can hang onto this one. If you go through any more we’ll have to change agencies again.”
“It’s not my fault if they keep sending maids that can’t clean.”
“Did I see Julie getting herself ready for school?”
“She’s old enough to do that now,” Linda said, smiling at her daughter. “Aren’t you Jewel?”
Julie shifted uncomfortably in her chair at the mention of her name. She was often not only a witness to, but also a target of, her father’s quixotic moods. And as a result she knew she stood a better chance of avoiding them by remaining invisible.
“And what are you doing with yourself today?” he asked Linda, thereby relieving Julie of the need to participate in the morning’s torture by having to reply.
“You must remember. I’m going to see Julie in her school play; I have a costume for her and everything.”
“Anything else coming up?”
“The day you get back there’s a meeting of the planning committee for the annual flower show at the women’s club.”
“Kid’s plays and flower shows,” Larry snorted. “While I’m busting my hump every day making the money that pays for all this; you’re busy with kid’s plays and flower shows. Quite a life you live. Maybe I’ll get to enjoy mine some day.”
Linda barely heard him.
“Well, I’m leaving for the train now,” he said abruptly, as he chugged down the last of his coffee, before grabbing his suitcase and heading out the door. “I’ll see you in a couple of days.”
Linda poured more coffee into her cup.
Setting the carafe back down, she then noticed a single droplet she’d spilled as it rolled slowly down the spotlessly clean surface of the table until at last she slammed her napkin down on it as though it was a bug.
“Goodbye darling,” she said with an automated cheeriness. “Have a good trip.”
Debra Griffin, Julie’s third grade teacher, was standing by the stage door when she saw Linda walking towards her carrying an oversized box in one hand and pulling an obviously reluctant Julie along behind her with the other.
“Good morning,” she greeted her student, as she checked Julie’s name off the list on her clipboard. “How are you today?”
“I’m fine, Mrs. Griffin,” Julie replied meekly.
“And you Mrs. Bauer?”
“Please call me Linda.”
“I do keep forgetting to do that, don’t I?” Debra asked, still hoping that one-day Linda would pick up on the fact that she would prefer to keep their relationship professional.
“No offense taken.”
“My that’s a big box. Is that you’re costume Julie?”
“Yes, it is,” Linda chimed in before her daughter could answer.
“Well I can’t wait to see you in it. You know Mrs. Bauer …”
“Linda,” she reminded her.
“Yes of course,” Debra conceded. “We’ll be starting in about thirty minutes; and I’d really like to have everyone on-stage at least ten minutes before then.”
“We’re ready to go, aren’t we Jewel?” Linda asked her daughter rhetorically, her eyes still fixed on Debra’s.
“The girl’s dressing room is on the left.”
“See you on-stage,” Linda twittered over her shoulder as she walked away with Julie trailing behind.
Debra couldn’t help but feel sorry for Julie. Because even though there was nothing specific she could put her finger on, there was something about Linda that made her uneasy about her having a child.
Linda zeroed in on an unoccupied corner of the sparsely furnished but well mirrored dressing room, and rushed over to it; triumphantly beating another mother to the spot by only a second. She then undressed Julie down to her underwear, and after opening the box containing the costume, began nervously putting it on her. Meanwhile Julie dejectedly allowed herself to be turned this way and that while Linda chattered excitedly about how impressed everyone was sure to be by her daughter’s appearance.
Despite her privileged circumstances as the only child of well-to-do parents, life had never gone smoothly for Julie. Born with minor birth defects to her hands and feet, which the doctors had seen fit to correct surgically while she was still in the hospital; she then contracted a severe infection, from which she was saved only by weeks in an incubator, large doses of antibiotics, and the unremitting efforts of her nurses. As a result however, she was left not only with hands that had odd, disjointed looking thumbs; but also with a slightly lopsided mouth that when she smiled gave her the vaguely distracted look of someone who was mentally handicapped.
Julie, of course, was aware that she was different. She saw it not only in the comparisons she made between herself and other children — but also in the naively cruel comments of her classmates, as well as in the looks of poorly concealed pity she sometimes saw in the faces of her teachers.
As bad as that was however, worst of all was the knowledge that her parents were disappointed with her.
“Mom, I don’t want to do it.”
“Now Julie we’ve been all over this.”
“But I don’t want to.”
“Julie,” her mother said impatiently. “As I’ve told before, there are want-tos and have-tos. This is a have-to.”
“I’m scared.”
“Well, you’ll just have to get over it. I mean we’re here, your wearing this lovely costume, Mrs. Bauer and all the other children are expecting you on-stage. You can’t let them down. We’re all counting on you. Do you understand?”
Julie didn’t answer.
“Julie?” Linda asked reproachfully.
Her eyes fixed on the floor Julie nodded her submission.
“That’s my brave girl. Now! Don’t you look beautiful?” Linda said enthusiastically, as she spun Julie around so that she could see herself in the mirror.
Julie stared at her reflection. The sight of it made her queasy.
The next second all sense of connection between her mind and body dissolved.
She was merely a spectator now; a small bundle of disembodied awareness, unconnected to the hand that Linda took firmly in hers, or the legs that followed her mother as she pulled her towards the stage.
She was alone.
There Linda left her with Debra, and quickly went out front to where she immediately found a seat near the stage. Then, taking a small camera from her bag, she sat eagerly erect in her chair ready to take pictures of Julie the moment she came on stage.
As befitted a children’s play, ‘Rescue of the Fairy Princess’ was simple, charming, and mercifully short. It was not until the very end of the play however, when the princess was returned safely to her parent’s castle, that Julie finally appeared as an anonymous member of the princess’ retinue. Inescapably conspicuous because while she was by far the best dressed character in the play; she also had one of its smallest parts.
The irresistibly comic irony of the situation sent a low ripple of laughter through the audience — that although Linda was too absorbed in taking pictures to notice it — nevertheless cut through her daughter like a knife.
Retreating even further into herself, Julie wanted only to disappear.
After dropping her car keys and handbag onto the kitchen table, and carefully placing the box containing Julie’s costume next to them, Linda picked up her phone to see who was calling.
Hesitating for a moment, she debated with herself about whether to answer or let it go to voicemail. The name and number flashing on the digital display belonged to a person she was in no mood to talk to. But as it was the third time they’d called that week, she at last decided to get it over with.
“Hello,” Linda said in an upbeat voice.
“Hello Linda. What’s the matter? Too busy to call back?”
“I’m sorry Sarah,” Linda replied, with as much sincerity as she could muster. “As a matter of fact I have been busy. How are you?’
“Being here, how do you think I am?”
Linda decided to avoid the subject of her sister’s living situation. Hoping that if she did, Sarah would refrain from inflicting her with yet another monologue on the misery of her existence.
“How’s mom?”
“Loving as ever.”
“And dad?”
“Absent as ever.”
In spite of everything that bound them together, Linda and Sarah had never been close, regarding each other more as competitors than sisters.
The older by more than six years, Sarah resented Linda even while she was still in the womb. Spending the months before her arrival, often entertaining childishly morose fantasies about her mother having an accident, or contracting some disease that would remove the threat that Sarah felt the as yet unborn intruder posed to her own precarious sense of security.
Dismissive and disparaging of Linda from the beginning, Sarah resisted every attempt to cast her in the role of a big sister. And when in time it became obvious that even nature had favored Linda over her, their estrangement became complete. And so over the years, the places assigned to them by Fate, and their parents, endured. With Sarah compulsively pursuing her destiny as the family’s physically plain, and often rebellious daughter — while Linda fulfilled hers, as Sarah’s pretty, though sometimes erratic, younger sister.
It was a situation that invited comparisons. And in so doing inevitably left Sarah at a hopeless disadvantage. Thus sealing their roles as rivals for their parent’s uncertain love, making sisterhood impossible.
Another result was that over the years that followed Linda’s marriage, it became Sarah’s habit to call her sister now and then, in search of signs that anything was amiss. Especially on those occasions when she felt depressed about her own circumstances.
“So, how’s life in Linda World?” Sarah asked, with a slight, but noticeable slur.
“It’s a little early to be drinking, isn’t it?” Linda retorted. “Even for you.”
“Soooo judgmental, little sister. I thought saints were supposed to be more understanding.”
“I take it you’re alone?”
“Yup.”
“At home?”
“Right again.”
“And where are mom and dad?”
“The usual, dad’s at work, or maybe the club by now. And mom…well you know mom. I believe the flavor of the month is still Martin, or is it Alan? I get confused.”
Regretting that she had brought up the subject of their parents, Linda grasped for another that would divert the conversation to a topic other than their mother’s infidelity, their father’s indifference, or the tangle of intertwined dependencies that kept them together.
“What are you drinking?”
“I got a bottle from dad’s cellar. It’s good stuff, Chateau Lafitte. It’ a little early in the day for a red, but I figured…what the hell.”
“I thought dad locked up the cellar. How’d you get in there?”
“I found the key.”
“You know, if you’re not careful they’ll throw you out of the house. Then what’ll you do?”
“They won’t do that.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because they enjoy telling me to my face what a disappointment I am.”
“You better hope they don’t get bored with it.”
“Hey, do I sound worried? So, you didn’t answer my question. How’s life in Linda’s little corner of paradise?”
“It’s hardly paradise.”
“Oh? Storm clouds on the horizon?”
“No,” Linda replied quickly, eager to dispel any hopes her sister might have that anything could be wrong.
“That’s reassuring.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“Now why should I be disappointed? It’s just a matter of time. In your own way you’re just as screwed up as I am.”
“Hardly. I outgrew my problems. You’re just jealous because you didn’t. I mean my God Sarah, just look at yourself.”
“Always the bitch.”
“As if you aren’t? Besides, your problems were always so public. It was hard for any of us to get away from them. The drinking, the drugs, the failed marriages, the accidents and DWIs — by the way, how many of those do you have now anyway?”
“See? Like I said, bitch.”
“You started it,” Linda retorted childishly. “You called me, remember?”
“Well, I must admit they weren’t like yours. Your breakdowns were so very quiet, so behind the scenes. Remember the bed-wetting? How old were you before that stopped?”
“Now who’s being a bitch?” Linda asked, her anger rising.
“Just continuing the family tradition,” Sarah replied with a sarcastic sigh. “Oh, but of course there was that one time. What was her name? Marjorie? Nobody thought you had it in you. But you showed ‘em. Sent her right to the emergency room.”
“She called mom a slut.”
“Linda, mom is a slut. Or what is it they call it now? Oh yeah, serial adulterer. Tell me, which do you prefer, slut, or serial adulterer?”
“You know right now I’d like to pull a Marjorie on you.”
“Touched a nerve did I? You know, I think you would have killed her if the housekeeper hadn’t pulled you off. And then, of course, who can forget the fire?”
“That was an accident.”
“I always had my doubts. And if I’m not mistaken, so did the police, and your psychiatrist.”
“You know Sarah, I think I’ve had enough of this. Oh, and by the way, when you do call – which I really wish you wouldn’t — I’d appreciate it if you were at least sober. It doesn’t make talking to you any more pleasant, but it is easier.”
“Going so soon?”
“Yeah, I really have enjoyed this little trip down memory lane, but the next time you want to complain about your life, why don’t you try the suicide hotline? Maybe they’ll put you on hold.”
“That’s a fine way to talk.”
“Goodbye Sarah.”
“Goodbye, little sis,” she replied pleasantly.
Hanging up the phone Linda began pacing up and down the kitchen floor, compulsively rubbing her arms and scolding herself for having taken Sarah’s call.
“Why do I talk to her?” she muttered. “I always regret it.”
“You’ll never win,” the voice reminded.
“It’s not my fault that we are what we are.”
“Her hatred is your parent’s love.”
“It’s so hard to get.”
“Harder to keep.”
“Please,” Linda, begged. “I can’t listen to you now.”
“Love hurts.”
“Stop it, stop it,” she pleaded rubbing her arms harder.
Suddenly Linda heard the muffled sound of footsteps coming down the stairs, and remembering the new maid was there, tried to pull herself together before she came into the kitchen.
“I’m done with the upstairs Mrs. Bauer,” Claudia said, as she came through the door. “Can I start down here now?”
“Down here?” Linda asked vacantly, while the voice chuckled at her in the background. “Yes of course, down here.”
Straightening herself, Linda walked as calmly as she could down the hall until she was out of Claudia’s sight. She then ran up the stairs to her bedroom, and locked the door behind her, the voice snickering at her all the way.
Linda lay down on the freshly changed bed and curled herself into a ball. Her eyes closed, and her hands covering her ears, she began humming softly to herself in an attempt to stifle any further comments by the all-knowing voice.
In keeping with its customary capriciousness however, on this occasion it chose not to linger.
Instead Linda heard only the sound of her own anxious humming, until at last it too was smothered by silence.
At first Linda did not hear the tapping at her bedroom door.
Soon however, its volume and persistence penetrated even the enveloping quietude in which she’d wrapped herself. Irresistibly pulling her from the restless yet womb-like comfort of her world, back into the one whose intrusiveness had caused her to flee.
“Mrs. Bauer, are you in there?” Claudia called out, as she tried vainly to turn the knob.
“Yes,” she heard herself say. “I’m coming.”
Linda struggled off the bed, and walked slowly towards the door. Each step fighting her way through the mental and emotional fog she always felt when returning to the world outside herself.
When at last she opened the door, she found Claudia staring at her with a concerned, but also fearful look in her eyes.
“Are you all right Mrs. Bauer?” she asked nervously.
“Yes, of course,” Linda insisted, in an effort to convince herself as much as the maid. “I was napping.”
“I’m sorry I woke you. I just wanted to let you know that I’m finished for today.”
“I’d already slept too long anyway,” Linda said with a forced nonchalance. “I’ll see you next week then.”
A few minutes later, Claudia’s ride arrived to get her.
Even before the car was out of the driveway, Linda had gotten a cloth and begun re-dusting the already brightly polished furniture.
Stopping dead in her tracks, Linda listened for a moment as the house’s stillness closed in around her. Walking quickly to the living room, she immediately switched on the entertainment system and pressed one of the radio’s preset buttons.
“…and of course don’t forget to tune in for local traffic and weather every ten minutes, and updated market reports every twenty minutes, throughout your business day. And now back to Scott Law and Laura Metchetsky in the newsroom…Thank you Ted, and at the bottom of the hour, these are the headlines,,,”
Linda sighed with relief as the comforting drone of monotonous chatter flowed through the living room. She preferred it to music, which rather than soothing her, often aroused the very emotions she wanted to suppress. Instead, the endless repetition of traffic reports, weather, stock quotes and headlines provided a steady stream of blather that not only filled the house’s demanding silence; but also helped smother the dark impulses and restless thoughts that otherwise randomly intruded upon her unguarded moments.
Humming disconnected musical notes, Linda then retrieved the box containing Julie’s costume from the kitchen table, and returning to the living room, spread it out on the sofa before her.
“How beautiful she looked,” Linda said aloud, as she recalled how Julie had appeared to her in the play that morning.
“She’s a troll.”
“Oh God,” Linda groaned.
“A troll,” the voice repeated unmercifully.
The seed of the thought now planted, Linda’s mind leapt immediately to the task of killing it before it could take root.
“No, no,” she replied, as she wrapped her arms around herself and shook her head in denial. “I won’t let you do this. She was beautiful. I know it was a small part, but that’s because she’s so shy. She’s not a troll. She’s a perfect little girl. She’s my little girl,” she insisted.
Linda stood staring at the costume. The look of delight that had animated her face only moments before, now twisted into one of horror, as the embellished image she’d created of Julie that morning was abruptly replaced by the reality.
“I can’t do this,” she said weakly.
“…with a slight chance of showers in areas near the coast.”
“You saw it,” the voice prodded.
“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” she shouted silently, certain it could hear her.
“Everyone did,” it persisted.
“What do you want from me?”
“Wrong question,” it corrected.
Still hugging herself tightly, Linda walked purposefully into the dining room and surveyed the long table that dominated it. Already meticulously set with an embroidered tablecloth and a large floral centerpiece, flanked by a pair of crystal candelabras. Each place setting was carefully arranged; using the new bone china she’d purchased only two months before, together with some of the very best pieces from her extensive collections of silver, linen and glassware.
Moving quickly to the large overstuffed hutch that dominated one wall of the room, Linda anxiously opened the newest edition of “Beautiful New England Homes” magazine that was sitting on the bottom shelf and flipped through it until she found the dog-eared pages she was looking for. On them was lovingly depicted a table setting that from the first moment she saw it, struck her as being even more perfect than the one that was there now.
“…and the major indices traded sideways today on low volume just before tomorrow’s release of new jobs numbers. In other economic news…”
In spite of the fact that it was becoming increasingly difficult to find new places for the ever growing collection of formal dining ware that she compulsively ordered from the steady stream of catalogues, magazines and emails that came to her daily, Linda soon put away everything that was on the table, until finally only the cloth, centerpiece and candelabras remained. Still humming mindlessly to herself, she then took a small knife from the butcher-block holder on the kitchen counter, and returning to the dining room, opened the door of the big closet next to the hutch.
Only three days before she had ordered everything she needed for the new setting from the companies mentioned in the article. Even going so far as to pay extra for express shipping in order to get everything there faster. Pulling five boxes from the closet, she then arranged them around one side of the room, and kneeling down on the floor, began methodically opening each.
“Hmmm, hmmm,” Linda hummed atonally, her eyes fixed on the knife blade as it sliced through the packing.
“…from there talks evidently collapsed, because the remainder of the conference was cancelled without further comment from either side. …”
“Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm.”
Referencing the artfully composed, and alluringly photographed pictures in the magazine, Linda then faithfully reconstructed the setting they depicted, until at last only the dinner and salad plates remained to be added. Carefully stacking all twelve of both on the hutch, she first took the dinner plates and gingerly centered each in its respective position on the placemat. Scrupulously equidistant, not only from the sterling silver utensils on the either side; but also from the bread and butter plate, as well as the three crystalline glasses arranged in a gentle arc around them. At last satisfied, she then picked up six of the salad plates, and starting at the head of the table, began placing them in the center of the dinner plates beneath.
“They laughed,” the voice said suddenly, resuming its ridicule of her broken illusion. “They laughed at both of you.”
“Hmmm, hmmm,” Susan whispered emphatically, trying to ignore the renewed intrusion.
“…and this just in…”
“Can’t deny it.”
“Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm,” Linda continued stubbornly as she took the first of the salad plates from the stack cradled in the crook of her arm and set it gently in place.
“…police report that all of the victims have now been evacuated…”
“Can’t escape it.”
“No,” Linda said, at last acknowledging her visitor’s return.
“…in other developments…”
“Another failure.”
“No,” she repeated, this time shaking her head slowly from side to side as she set down the second plate with an audible clink.
“…and today…”
“Perfection always eludes you.”
“Why does this happen to me?” she whimpered.
“No matter how hard you try.”
Clink.
“…both sides at this point seem unwilling…”
“Don’t do this to me.”
Clink.
“Do you ever know what you’re doing?” the voice asked.
“I don’t…I think,” Linda stammered as she tried to reply, unsure of the answer.
“That’s right, you don’t think.”
Clink.
“…the answer apparently eluding even…”
“Fool.”
“Please stop,” she pleaded.
Clink.
“…back to you…”
Suddenly a series of musical tones caught Linda’s attention. And following the sound, she walked mindlessly towards its source.
“Hello,” she said automatically as she picked up her phone.
“Hello Linda, this is Patty.”
“Hi Patty,” she replied vaguely, struggling for control.
“How are you doing?”
“Fine.”
“Listen, I know it’s my week to pick the kids up at school, but I wanted to ask if I could take Julie with me while I run a couple of errands. I promise I’ll have her home no later than five.”
“Yeah, no problem. No problem at all,” she said dismissively, eager to end the call.
“Great.”
“Okay fine, I’ll see you at five,”
Hanging up, Linda walked slowly back to the dining room, and went directly to the same side of the table she’d been setting when the phone rang. To her surprise, all but the first of the six salad plates she had just put out, lay cracked and broken atop the chipped dinner plates beneath.
Linda stared for a moment, both frustrated and fearful at the results of her handiwork. And so as usual, there was nothing left for her to do but to cover-up the evidence of her latest lapse of self-control as best she could.
Moving quickly, she then cleared the table of everything but the cloth. Haphazardly tossing both the damaged and undamaged pieces of her new china into the same box, which she then hid in the trunk of her car. Planning — as she always did when she needed to dispose of some piece of incriminating evidence — to drop it off at the town dump, as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
After hurriedly resetting the table with its previous arrangement, she then ordered another set of dishes exactly like the one she’d just thrown away. Once again, paying the same exorbitant shipping fees as before, in hopes of covering her tracks by getting them there faster. Despite the fact, that no one but she even knew that the now discarded set had been purchased in first place.
“…on the Belt Parkway. At the tone the time will be four thirty…”
Linda pressed one of the glowing buttons on the entertainment console and instantly the house was plunged into a depthless silence.
Conscious once more of the passage of time, Linda went first to the powder room where she washed her hands and checked herself in the mirror. Returning to the kitchen, she then sat down on a chair near a window that overlooked the driveway, and waited for Patty to arrive with Julie.
Thankfully the voice was quiet now. And although, as always, the reasons for its comings and goings remained as much of a mystery as ever — the turmoil that it left behind was as certain as the knowledge that it would soon return.
Blane’s tires kicked up some gravel as he rounded the corner into Linda’s driveway. There was barely two weeks remaining before school started, and he didn’t want to pass up a single opportunity to be with her before he left. And with her husband away on one of his frequent trips, and her daughter by now in bed for the night, the timing couldn’t be better.
Blane entertained no illusions about his relationship with Linda. He had met her accidently through a friend’s fiancé, and they quickly became lovers. But both knew there was no future in it for either of them. He was a soon-to-be graduate student, nearly sixteen years her junior. And she, a married woman who had no intention of leaving her husband and child for someone who was, after all, just the latest in long line of casual affairs. The real purpose of which was to rub her husband’s nose in the fact that although she had to cope with him having a lover, he was forced to contend with her having many.
It was a situation that Linda made no effort to keep from Blane. Thereby relieving him, not only of any moral responsibility for what they did, but also sometimes prompting him to wonder who would be next.
Yet despite the fact that the question of love was never an issue, Blane and Linda did enjoy each other’s company enough so that their relationship was not purely sexual. Linda however, was far from Blane’s intellectual equal, which often made mutually interesting topics of conversation difficult to find. It was a situation that Linda felt no need to address, but to which Blane often acquiesced by simply allowing Linda to talk about anything she wanted.
However as Blane soon discovered, Linda’s sometimes near monologues were not entirely devoid of interest. Especially when she spoke about her family. Even if only half of what she said was true, they were the most mutually self-destructive group of people he’d ever heard of. As a result, he found listening to Linda’s stories about them like being a spectator at a grudge match between a collection of misbegotten narcissists.
But as vicariously dramatic, and erotically compelling, as he found his relationship with Linda to be, over time he also began to see a dark side in her too. And its presence made him glad their affair would soon be over.
As for Linda, she liked Blane, almost as much as she was flattered by the attentions of a man so much younger than herself. But all was not well. Because as much as she enjoyed their nights together, lately there had been something about them that left her feeling even more incomplete than was usually the case with the intense but disposable relationships she so often wandered through.
A few hours later, Blane left, confident that Linda was as satisfied with their lovemaking as he was.
But he was wrong.
Linda felt empty.
The instant Linda’s mind snapped awake her eyes began probing the darkness all around her until at last they settled on the brightly glowing numbers that shown from the digital clock on her nightstand.
Her hour had struck.
Knowing that it would be only minutes before it was too late, she pulled the covers over her head – hoping that if given the chance, her mind might again slip into the stillness in which it was immersed only moments before. Squeezing her eyes shut she tried to keep her mind in check by focusing her attention on the steady rhythm of her own breathing. A task that became increasingly difficult as the flipbook in her head sprang to life and her breath came ever faster as the speed with which its pages turned increased. Past and present, like bits of old film, were stung together with no regard for their actual chronology, forcing her to relive every sad, disturbing and painful moment of her life in random order.
At last feeling herself nearing the edge of panic she bolted from the bed and ran quickly through the door. Standing alone in the darkened hallway, she no longer saw the flipbook images racing through her brain. And for a moment, only her fear and the sound of her own labored breathing filled the space around her.
It was then she remembered the time, and with it the dark hours that remained until the light of day dissolved them. And yet in spite of the horror that she knew awaited her waking self, it was no worse than the terrors she knew would come if she slept. For although her sleep, at first, usually carried her to a place of welcome oblivion, her second sleep frequently spirited her instead to corners of her mind so frightful that she often awoke panicked and sometimes gasping for air; terrified of some nameless thing, that with waking, had vanished inside a fading dream but whose memory remained.
Finding herself inexplicably averse to going downstairs, she instead walked the length of the upstairs hall several times; peering into every room each time she passed it – as if she expected to find that something had changed since she last time she’d looked in only moments before. Unwisely entering Larry’s study, she suddenly found herself both mesmerized and frightened by the pine furniture, whose darkened knots, like eyes, stared and blinked at her as though examining a specimen under a microscope. Coolly awaiting the opportunity to observe her reaction, as the room began disintegrating around her.
Then, as Linda watched, each object began to take on an irresistibly individual identity. No longer content to be merely something that comprised a portion of the whole, each thing now stood alone, apart; trying in ways she found impossible to comprehend to disconnect itself from everything around it. Every piece of furniture, every book, every picture and sheet of paper suddenly seemed to exist solely of and for itself. Their lines bright and hard, their shapes unbearably clear, they resisted every effort she made to reassemble them into the room she knew to be her husband’s study. Soon the silent cacophony of their competing demands for recognition drove her back into the hall.
All at once Linda’s desire to get as far from her husband’s study as she could overcame her antipathy to going downstairs, and a moment later she found herself standing in the dining room. The one room in the house that her husband didn’t care about – except to complain about the amount of money she spent, decorating and redecorating a room they never used – she often found it a refuge. Because it, and everything it contained, she felt, belonged only to her.
Tonight however was different. As soon as she entered she realized that the same peculiar sense of awareness that had driven her from Larry’s study also followed her downstairs. Walking over to the long, elaborately set table, she watched in astonishment, as each object on it seemed to redefine itself before her eyes. Even more than in Larry’s study, the multiplicity of shapes and colors, so scrupulously positioned, so meticulously arranged, refused to join themselves with the things around them. As her eyes flicked frantically over the table, desperately searching for a starting point around which to build a coherent picture of what she was seeing, she became more and more perplexed about how a sight she knew so well could suddenly render itself so stubbornly incomprehensible. Soon her confusion grew to the point that her head began to swim.
Linda backed away from the table, and across the hall to the living room. Closing the big sliding doors behind her, she then hunkered down on the coach amidst the oversized throw pillows that covered it and pulled her legs up against her chest in an effort to make herself smaller. As if by hiding, the all-present world would not find her.
Linda felt it the moment it entered. Long seconds passed in silence. She prayed it was a reprieve but knew it wasn’t.
Her breath came faster, while her arms and legs twitched with nervous anticipation. All she could do now was wait.
Then, without warning, a pair of strong hands seized her by the shoulders and pushed her roughly backwards onto the coach, while at the same time she felt her nightgown being pulled open, leaving her exposed to the gaze of the unseen intruder.
The next second Linda felt a strange masculine form press itself full and hard against her.
“Did you think you could hide from me?”
“I knew it was you,” she thought, knowing it could hear her. “Why can’t you leave me alone?”
“It’s time you knew,” the voice replied, so quickly that it was as if it knew the question before she asked it.
“No,” she moaned, afraid of the answer.
“Stupid woman. I’m here because you want me to be.”
“I never wanted you,” she protested.
“As if you ever wanted anything else.”
“How do you know what I want?”
“How could I not?”
“Go away,” she pleaded. “It feels like you’re trying to get inside me.”
“I already am inside you you little fool. Now you must let me in all the way.”
“No.”
“You refuse me? You made me. Bit by bit, piece by piece. And now you refuse me?”
“But why do you torment me?”
“Because you delude yourself. You try again and again to turn the world into a reflection of yourself but you can’t. Only I can show you where what you want most won’t elude you.”
“I’m so tired,” she replied weakly.
“But there’s a price.”
“What price?”
Linda groaned painfully as it entered her.
Larry paid the driver, and with suitcase in hand, walked wearily up the flagstone path to the back door and let himself in.
He was barely inside before he saw them.
There on the tiles covering the kitchen floor, he could plainly see several sets of overlapping footprints. Dropping his bag, he then knelt down on one knee to get a closer look.
What he saw sent a chill up his spine.
“Linda,” he called out as he followed the footprints down the hall that led from the kitchen. “Where are you?”
“Daddy?” he heard Julie call out weakly.
Larry quickened his pace towards the sound of his daughter’s voice, and a moment later pulled open the living room doors. There he found Julie. Her eyes red, and her face streaked with dried tears, she was curled up in a large chair, fearfully clutching a small stuffed animal.
“Julie,” he said urgently. “Are you all right? Where’s your mother?”
“Mommy’s sick,” she replied tremulously.
“Sick? What do you mean?”
“Last night, I heard her yelling at somebody. So I came downstairs to see who it was. But there was nobody here.”
“Have you been in here all night?”
“Mommy told me to go back to bed, but I was afraid.”
“Where is she now?”
The next moment, Larry heard sounds coming from a nearby room. Taking Julie by the hand, he then led her quickly to the stairs, and told her to go up to her bedroom and wait there until he came for her.
Larry followed the sound of Linda’s humming until at last he found her in the dining room. Still dressed in her nightgown, she was standing with her back to him, evidently unaware of his presence as she busied herself with something on the table that he couldn’t see.
“Linda?” he said, as he walked cautiously towards her.
Linda didn’t answer, but instead kept humming happily to herself as she continued what she was doing.
“Linda?” he said again slightly louder.
Linda looked up as if she finally realized that she wasn’t alone, and turned around to face him.
He gasped at the sight of her.
She stood before him in a torn nightgown, the front of which was stained from the crotch down with streaks of dried blood – smears and spatters of which also covered her legs and feet.
Linda looked at Larry for a moment as if she didn’t know him. Then, suddenly, she broke into a broad smile of recognition, as she reached up with a bloodied hand to brush a lock of hair away from her eyes.
“Hello, darling,” she greeted him. “Did you have a good trip?”