by Laura Sims
*
Hours later. Early morning light fills the windows. When I’ve dressed, I wrap Cat’s soft, stiffening body in the old blanket she loved to lie on. I take her downstairs and dig a tiny grave for her with the snow shovel in the front garden. The dirt is packed hard, so it takes a while. I’m sweating and light-headed after the first few shovelfuls. People walk by as I work—curious, appalled, or concerned, I imagine. I feel their eyes on my back—I feel their interest lift me up. Who knows, the actress herself could be walking by. I dig harder, faster. When I’m finally done, I feel a strange satisfaction standing over the grave, breathing heavily and wiping my brow. Like I’ve earned her death, or atoned for it. I set her body in the hole and cover it with earth. There is a small mound over Cat’s body. Hardly noticeable. I smooth it down with my bare hands and close my eyes. Dear precious Cat, always mine, forever mine, forgive me, is the silent prayer I make. I imagine how peaceful the scene would be to a passerby: woman kneeling in her dirt-streaked clothes at the foot of a minuscule grave, solemn and prayerful and dignified.
I shower thoroughly, shampooing and conditioning my hair, following the directions on the bottles down to the last line. I clean and scour every crevice of my body: elbows, armpits, butt, vagina. Nothing will stink or be sour once I’m done. Nothing will soil my clean resolve. Cat is gone, I have smothered and buried and mourned her. I am profoundly sad but also proud of my resolve. What it took to kill her! How strong and ruthless I had to be! These are skills—qualities—that can help me carry on with the rest of what I must do to set things right.
Still wrapped in a towel after my shower, I tear down the tape wall leading to the extra room. There’s no need for it now, without Cat to worry me. I had almost forgotten that she was the reason I’d needed it in the first place. The wall feels ancient, like it’s been in place since before we moved in. But of course it hasn’t, and now I want to be able to see and touch all the precious objects I’ve gathered. I’m tearing down the tape at a feverish pace when the bright pink paint of the actress’s daughter’s bike catches my eye. I haven’t seen it since I brought it in, but there it is, still shining beautifully in the dark. As if it were propped in the store, waiting for someone to buy it. When the tape has all been stripped away, I stand in the doorway and turn on the light, staring around at the tidy piles of things. Then I move among them, touching random objects, crouching down now and then to examine something. There are things I haven’t thought of in months, or even years, layering the floor, desk, and shelves. Pristine sets of children’s books, faded but hardly worn sweaters, expensive-looking girls’ shoes, a frankly hideous straw hat with a red-and-gold-plaid ribbon around it, glue sticks, pots of glitter, tiny bottles of nail polish, a portable radio, and a small bucket of hair accessories, perfect for a young girl. All of this treasure is mine—even the pile of broken shards that I myself created. I sit down in the center of the room, surrounded by my trophies, breathing in the atmosphere of satisfying fullness.
But as the minutes tick by, something shifts. Imperceptibly at first, then it weighs on me heavily: all of this stuff. It carries too much of my history. It bears witness to what I’ve done, who I’ve been, how I’ve been wronged and abandoned and lost and emptied out and wronged again. How I’ve raged, how I’ve killed. I get up and walk from the room and wish I had never taken the tape wall down. My eyes are tearing, and my skin is itching all over. Close it up!
I put up a new tape wall, strip by strip, as quickly as I can. For an hour or so, I manage to sit calmly on the couch with a glass of wine, feeling liberated, light and free. Then the heaviness creeps back—the weight of all those things. How can I go on living with them? I feel them watching me through the wall—as if they had eyes! All the same, this must be what the actress feels like—eyes always on her, penetrating her secret corners, unearthing her innermost desires and fears, every waking moment of her life. A wave of pity and grief washes over me—for her, for me, for us.
It hits me like a revelation. I want to show her that I understand, that I know now how it feels. I want to share this with her, too. And it dawns on me that I can.
For the second time tonight, I take the tape wall down.
*
I stand in her front garden with the first box in my hands. It is almost 3 a.m. I’m dressed in black, like last time, but I will perform my duties in silence this time. There will be no furious crash—she will see how I have moved through recklessness and anger to an artful understanding and solidarity. She will have no choice but to see it!
It takes eleven trips total. I’ve long since sweated through my black clothes. I’m out of breath and feel light-headed every time I climb the stairs, but I’m also determined to stay focused, to do things right. Everything looks very tidy and interesting when I’m done—like an installation. The boxes are neatly stacked, one on top of another, and the bicycle is out in front of all of them, gleaming in the faint moonlight. I’ve draped some clothes along the gate in a festive way—a beige cardigan here, a light pink turtleneck sweater there. I’ve removed all the children’s shoes from their boxes and lined them up neatly along the front fence, in order of size. It’s like watching the actress’s children grow up before my eyes, scanning from the tiny balletlike slippers to the larger bejeweled sneakers, and finally to the almost adult-size green rain boots. When the actress wakes, she will see this whole tableau I’ve created for her—this whole tribute to her life as a mother, actress, and wife. As a human being. It’s my way of saying, I see you. But also, I know how hard it is to be seen! As a final touch, I carefully place the shards that were once my glass dish in the seat of a child-size foam armchair, which is itself balanced on top of two boxes. It looks like the final tier of a towering wedding cake, the crown on my visual masterpiece. My loving, original homage.
It dawns on me as I stand there admiring the scene: What if someone comes by and takes something before the actress wakes? If even one small thing were removed from the display—a pair of shoes, a windbreaker, that glistening bike!—it would ruin the order and balance of everything. I steal back to my building and sit on the top step of the stoop, staring toward her house, shivering slightly and smoking one cigarette after another.
Four a.m., or thereabouts. I’ve drifted off a few times, but always snap back awake before too long. There have been only a few stragglers in the last hour—one group of very drunk guys, arguing loudly about a soccer game, who passed right by without noticing it. One homeless man staggered by later, with a rotten bag slung over his shoulder. He glanced at the actress’s house, and paused slightly—every muscle in my body tensed—but ultimately he shook his head and moved on. But right now, a figure I instantly recognize is coming up the block. She’s a homeless woman I’ve seen around here for years, a prematurely aged white lady with dark glasses and a rat’s nest for hair. She always wears the same shapeless, ankle-length denim dress, tied loosely at the waist, and she pushes a grocery cart full of her junk to and fro. Here she comes, and I know, I just know she’s going to notice the actress’s house. Indeed she does. She pauses, looks around as if looking for a camera—or for me!—and then bends down to inspect the shoes. All at once, I find myself racing down the steps, then the sidewalk, at full speed. Before I’ve even gotten close, she looks up, startled, wheels her cart around, and takes off running herself. I stand huffing in front of number 202, hands on my hips, surveying any possible damage. She didn’t touch a thing. Well, she touched a thing but didn’t take it. Thank god.
I go back to my house and resume my post. The minutes and hours tick by, the neighborhood wakes, people walk their dogs, others go briskly off to work, heels tap tap tapping on the slate. Nothing moves at the actress’s house. Then it happens. The basement gate swings open. The youngest girl runs out, then stops in her tracks. The older girl steps out behind her, and also freezes. Then, at last, the actress emerges. Her eyes widen, her mouth hangs open. She pulls the girls to her. Clutches them. Ushers them through the garden t
o the sidewalk, still staring, still looking terribly afraid. She pulls out her phone and dials someone, speaks rapidly while looking back at the house. It is not exactly the reaction I wanted, but nevertheless it thrills me. Deep in my gut. It’s a deeper feeling, even, than when I stood and chatted with her at the block party that day and she touched my arm—twice. I savor the moment—too long. By the time I stand up, realizing I need to run inside, I’m caught, helplessly staring as they pass. When the actress looks up, she recognizes me, I’m sure of it this time. She knows me, of course she does! I hold up a hand—to wave or to stop her from leaving, I’m not sure which—but she doesn’t pause. She speeds up, hustling her daughters up the street to school. I’ve never seen her look as disheveled as she does today; her hair needs combing and her tired eyes want liner or mascara. Her lips could use some Divine Wine. She looks like I usually do when I’m trudging to or from the grocery store. I feel lonely when she goes, but also satisfied. I’ve done a good day’s work. An important, difficult, necessary day’s work. Even the habitual ache of loneliness can’t undo that.
Later in the morning, when the urge to see the entirety of what I made for her takes me by the throat, I put on some sweatpants and a T-shirt (out for a jog—ha!) and head down the block. I can see movement in her front garden. My heart speeds up. I quicken my pace. When I get there, I see several staff members carrying boxes into the house. One of them is that woman, the one who barred the door after the block party, the one who caused the incident with the dish. When I get close enough, she happens to look up from her labors—I see that she’s pawing through one of the boxes, and after working so hard to collect these treasures it pains me, literally pains me, to see her touching them!—and when she sees me, she freezes. As I move along, I feel her eyes burning into my back, accusing me, hating me—for something that has nothing to do with her! What does she know about any of this? Nothing. Nothing at all.
At home I head right for the closet to get out my cleaning supplies. First I vacuum the extra room thoroughly, and then I dust and polish the furniture, the window ledges, the windows themselves, and in some places, the walls, where things had been stacked against them, leaving marks. When I’m done, the place is clean and stark. Beautiful. It looks almost like it did when we first moved in: fresh and promising, a place where I can reinvent my life. I sit down on the area rug in the room and breathe deeply. The lemony smell of the cleaning solutions revives me—after Nathan left I threw out all of his worthless organic cleaners and replaced them with Clorox, 409, Windex, and Pledge. And look at this spotless room! That herbal crap couldn’t have done such a thorough job. One more way in which Nathan is dead wrong. And dead to me. Ha!
In this moment of satisfaction and high confidence, I get out my phone. Text Nathan: Cat died last night. Signing divorce papers now. After I shower—wrists still stinging under the hot spray—and dress for the day, I sit directly down at my desk and sign the divorce papers, fold them neatly, and insert them into the stamped envelope so thoughtfully provided by Platz, Hodder, and Wright. I resist the urge to write GOOD RIDDANCE in black marker on the back of the envelope. Then I sit at my computer and begin to work on my CV and cover letter. I will begin a job search today. I will find something suitable, convenient, and better than the job I’ve had for so many years. I’d felt stagnant there for ages, truth be told. This will be the start of a whole new life for me: Nathan is purged from my life forever, the mess with Bernardo is finished, I have no children weighing me down, Cat is gone, and I have shed my dead old job as well. As for the actress, I’ve laid my cards on the table—or her belongings on the stoop, I should say. New beginnings! I feel more alert and alive than I have in weeks, and I have my own initiative to thank for it. I should have taken charge like this ages ago.
Later in the day, after hours spent searching the academic job listings on the MLA website and updating my CV, I stand in the empty extra room to inhale those scents again, get a hit of renewed purpose. The chemicals have faded, though, since I’ve left the window open to air them out, and in the late afternoon light the room looks more sad and empty than refreshingly stark, the old dresser still scarred beneath its recent polish, the walls a dingy off-white, with streaks of brightness where I’ve wiped them. It looks as ragged as I’ve come to feel, and as empty as my womb has always been.
And Cat. I miss Cat. How she would curl her tail around my legs and purr until I picked her up. How she could fill my arms and a room with her warmth and soft noise. My eyes start to tear but I wipe at them angrily, gritting my teeth. Such nonsense.
I leave to mail the envelope, and return with a new roll of duct tape. Once again, I put the tape wall back up, piece by piece, until the doorway is completely covered.
I go outside for a walk. Instead of pacing the streets as I usually do, I head for the park, recalling my now-distant fantasies of fucking the actress’s husband with an almost painful mix of pleasure and guilt. The park is full of winding little paths, mostly used by drug dealers during the weekday afternoons, but I brave them anyway—what could they possibly do to me? Rape? Murder? Sell me pot (the most likely)? I’m not afraid. When I reach the gazebo, it’s occupied by a human-shaped lump—or two of them?—moving under blankets. Whatever’s going on in there is sickening. Unclean. I quickly turn around, head back up the path.
When I get home, my phone is lit up with texts. Nathan, I’m sure, but I don’t check. Instead, I stand at the tape wall and press my face against it. It feels cool and slick against my skin, but I can sense the awful weightlessness of the room behind it. I try to recapture what I felt right after I cleaned it, that sense of pure accomplishment. Now I stand here feeling nothing but empty empty empty and I press my face harder into the tape to try to stop the tears but they come anyway, faster and faster until I have to sink down onto the couch and just let them come. When the sobs finally subside, I can’t help myself. I reach for the phone and see just what I expected to see: hatred and ugliness from my ex.
What the hell have you done to Cat? She was perfectly healthy—I know she didn’t just die. You’re sick. You’re really sick. I don’t even believe you that she’s dead. But if she IS, I know YOU did something to her. And that’s incredibly fucked up.
What the fuck is wrong with you??
It’s hard to read, but I do, several times over, letting the words sink in one lacerating letter at a time. I stare at my phone screen for an hour at least, long enough for the words to lose all meaning, for the letters themselves to reduce down to strange symbols from an alien tongue. The windows darken. It’s time to open a bottle of wine.
*
The extra room nags at me. I shouldn’t have emptied it out! I should have just taken everything out of the boxes and decorated the room with my spoils—it would have kept me connected to her, and prevented this sickening hollowness. But all of it is gone—all of the things I worked so hard to accumulate, all of my treasure on this earth. I want to tear down the tape wall and reclaim what I relinquished and feel my life full again.
Too late, too late, little fool, Cat would say, in her small, ghostly voice.
Lying on the rug in my living room, staring up at the cobwebbed ceiling fan, letting my mind drift, an image begins to form.
A very strange image.
It’s the actress, sitting cross-legged in my spare room—the baby’s room, the extra room—trapped there, held there, living there. Wouldn’t she breathe a sigh of relief at finally being unseen, safe within walls, in my company only? All of the onerous duties and complexities of her life would drop away. We would have such talks! Over wine or tea; over light, delicious meals or sumptuous candlelit dinners. Whatever she needed or wanted, I would provide for her. The scenes of our imagined life fill my stomach with a warmth that surpasses what I feel from the almost-full bottle of wine I’ve drunk. Surpasses, even, what I felt for the belongings of hers I used to have, and for Cat, and for the husband I used to have, too. What is he now, after all? Only a cold, hard lump in
the pit of my stomach. Meaningless.
If I were to do it, to make it real, I would start simply. I’d monitor the actress’s comings and goings—like I already do, but with more rigor. I’d watch her jog by in spandex toward the park at 6 a.m., and jog back home forty-five minutes later, her skin glowing with sweat. She’d walk the girls to school a bit later, an arm draped over each one’s shoulder as they meandered up the block. I would do my best to be invisible. I could even watch from inside my building’s front door sometimes to keep her or anyone else from becoming suspicious. Once I’d mapped out her schedule, I would choose the easiest time to get her alone—probably the early morning jog—and then I’d wait for the right moment.
A kitchen knife and a quiet threat should nicely do the trick. Though I would hate to start things off that way.
In the meantime, I’d ready her room—the spare room, of course. I’d order a futon, pillows and sheets, an easy chair and reading lamp. I’d set it all up to be cozy and soothing—a safe little nest. I’d need to install a door, and I suppose I’d have to have the locksmith return and install a dead bolt on it—and pay him extra to keep quiet, too.
What about the window? I’d want her to have the view—she deserves a view!—but I couldn’t risk having anyone see her. Couldn’t risk her signaling for help, or even leaping out to escape. It’s a shame, but it would probably be best to board up the window. I’d cover it with a lovely curtain, of course. And take her out periodically—to the living room, I mean—for supervised window time.
Her screams would not be a problem. There’s no one below us to hear.
When the day finally came, I would bring my sharpest kitchen knife, a Christmas gift from Nathan’s mother, and I’d come up behind the actress and grip her shoulder, pressing the knifepoint to her back so she’d gasp just a little. “Don’t scream, don’t do anything,” I’d say. “You’ll be fine. Follow me.” And she’d let me push her up the block, up my stoop, up to my apartment.