by E. C. Diskin
Hackett turned quickly to see why Bishop would mention kids, what he might know, but Bishop chuckled. “I know your generation is full of baby daddies,” he said, like he was channeling the street lingo, “and people don’t get married anymore.”
He was closer than he knew.
“So I’m just saying, I know it’s a small town and it’s the off-season, so it feels even smaller, but you need to stay focused.”
“I only said she was cute,” he muttered. “Can we drop it?”
“Whoa. Little sensitive, there? Lighten up, Francis.”
“What?” Could his new partner really not remember his first name was Justin?
“Name that movie. Come on. You must know that line,” and then he said it again, with more gruff in his voice. “Lighten up, Francis.”
“No idea.”
“The introductions in the barracks . . .” He started laughing. “Stripes!”
“Never saw it.”
“Jeez, you are a baby. Okay, that’s a required movie. I’ll tell the chief you’re not ready for the next level until you’ve seen it.”
Hackett finally broke a smile. “Okay, okay. I’ll add it to the list.”
Bishop spit into his cup. “Good.”
When Grace woke, a blanket covered her and her shoes had been removed. The living room was darker now, though light streamed in from the kitchen, where Lisa was cooking at the stove. Music played softly in the background. Grace pulled the towel from her forehead, sat up, and slowly made her way into the room.
“Hey, sleepyhead. Feeling any better?”
“Yeah. These headaches just wipe me out. I feel kind of woozy.”
“Well, I guess that’s better than the pain, right? Hell, that’s why I drink this.” Lisa raised her wineglass. “Nothin’ wrong with a little woozy.”
Grace sat on a barstool at the counter while Lisa stirred something in a saucepan, the fragrance of roasted tomatoes in the air. “Were you telling the truth before? To the police?”
Lisa froze. “What do you mean?”
“Did I tell you what happened when I came here Friday night?”
“No,” she said, and lifted her glass for another sip. “I know this must be so strange. You probably don’t know how to feel.”
“I feel lost.”
“Well, I can tell you that maybe this was a good thing.” She set down the glass and continued stirring.
“How can you say that?”
“I don’t mean good that he’s dead. I just mean good that you broke up. At least we know he can’t hurt you anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
Lisa hesitated, looking at the grease-stained tiles behind the stove. “Michael had a temper. That’s why you wanted to get your stuff when he wasn’t home. You didn’t want a confrontation. I asked you to leave him so many times, Grace. It wasn’t healthy.”
“Did he hurt me?”
“Well, that’s a loaded question, isn’t it,” she said, her eyes avoiding Grace’s like it was too hard to say what came next. “I never saw a black eye or anything, and you never said he hit you, but I don’t know what went on behind closed doors. You just seemed afraid.” She turned and must have sensed Grace’s anxiety. “Don’t worry. The doctor said you need rest. Your memory will come back. This will all get cleared up. They’ll figure it out. He probably had lots of enemies. Now,” she said, opening the oven door below her and retrieving two sandwiches, the cheese oozing from their sides, “I made tomato soup and grilled cheese. Sound good?”
It sounded perfect, actually. Much better than the stuff at the hospital, and despite everything, she was hungry. After dinner, she went back to the sofa and Lisa went up to work on her bedroom. Grace said she’d watch television, but she preferred silence. She scrutinized the walls: the scuffs, nail marks, the lightened rectangles of space indicating longtime locations of paintings or pictures. She studied the fireplace: the painted wood mantel, its ornately detailed design now grayed from soot; the iron grate; the remnants of wood, mounds of ash, and the cracked brick hearth. She’d been a child in this house, a little girl who probably sat in front of the fire, playing board games on that rug. But as she tried to conjure the image, to transform the space in time back to something recognizable, it felt forced, like she was simply drafting a story in her mind.
When she couldn’t wait any longer to use the bathroom, she stood, bracing the arm of the sofa to regain her equilibrium. Specks of light clouded her vision, but she slowly made her way up the stairs and paused in Lisa’s doorway to say good night. Lisa brought her an old T-shirt and some sweatpants from Grace’s dresser, turned down her bed, and got her evening dose of medication.
When Grace opened her eyes again, the green digital display on the clock atop the milk crate next to her glowed in the darkened room: 1:36 a.m. She was wide awake. She sat up slowly, trying to protect the ribs that begged her to be still, and walked to the window, the cold wood floor creaking beneath her bare feet. The full moon cast a dim light onto the front lawn, and stars speckled the clear sky. It was peaceful. Beautiful. Or it could be; maybe it used to be. She put her hand to the window. In the frigid air, the icy-thin glass fogged around her fingers.
She found some socks in the dresser and wandered to the bathroom. She stood at the pedestal sink, bathed in the bright light bouncing off the white-tiled walls, staring at her mirrored image: the freckles, the mole near her chin, the teeth, the bite of her jaw. She had good teeth, very straight. Had she worn braces? She made several faces at herself—serious, goofy, tongue out, tongue in . . . could she flip her tongue? It was like playing with a new toy—this face, this body. She opened the medicine cabinet and examined the shaving cream, disposable razors, deodorant, toothpaste, floss—like a detective looking for clues. She pulled the cap off the Mennen deodorant and whiffed. Masculine, familiar. Did Lisa use this? Did she? Did Michael? A small makeshift table sat next to the sink, piled high with makeup, brushes, a hair dryer, and jewelry. She searched for a glass or cup—her cotton mouth had returned—but despite evidence of every possible item one might cram into a bathroom, found none.
She peeked into Lisa’s room. Paint rollers and open paint cans sat atop newspapers lining the floor along the walls, now half-covered in a vivid turquoise that practically glowed in the dark. A pile of ripped wallpaper sat in a heap on the floor, and Lisa lay curled into a ball on the mattress like a baby.
Grace made her way down the creaking stairs to the kitchen for water. The house was quiet and dark. She stood in the center of the room and considered the space. It felt familiar. She shut her eyes and heard cabinets closing, a woman’s voice calling her down to breakfast. Her muscles relaxed. She opened her eyes. There, in front of the sink—a tall woman, maybe forty, with wild, long, wavy dark hair, wearing a T-shirt, jeans, and a paint-covered apron, looking out the window toward the backyard, smiling. Mom. It was only a glimpse and then it was gone.
Perhaps everyone was right. Being here would bring it all back. She got some water and took another Ambien from the bottle by the sink. She sat at the table, enjoying the nanosecond of what must have been a memory before a loud clacking sound started up.
She walked into the hall, the noise growing louder. It was coming from below. Under the stairs, she saw a door, held shut by a hook-and-eye latch. She lifted the hook and the door opened, as if she’d given freedom to a force behind it. The air was cold and damp. The noise grew louder. It had to be the furnace. Lisa had said Mom and Dad’s stuff was in the basement.
The switch on the wall failed to turn on a light. Still, she gripped the railing and descended the creaking wood treads, the total darkness of the basement engulfing her. She stepped onto the cold concrete floor and nearly shrieked when something touched her face. But it was just a string. Pulling it bathed the room in the dim light of a bare bulb above her head.
The furnace in the co
rner rumbled and then clacked to a halt. The room fell silent, but the space was calling out to her, almost begging for investigation—old pieces of furniture, boxes, piles of clothing still on hangers, framed artwork, laundry baskets and milk crates filled to the brim—all of it holding potential clues to her life. She walked over to a large roll of carpet, taped together, and, pulling back a corner, revealed a hint of white shag. She fingered the fibers and smiled. It was hers. She’d rolled around on that rug as a child in her bedroom.
Next to the rug was a white-painted table covered in butterflies. This was hers too. Her fingers traced the texture of the paint, the delicate brushstrokes on the wings. Her mom had painted this. Grace moved around the table, examining all four sides, the butterflies, flowers, detailed trees and grass. On the back, in marker, were smiley faces, at least a dozen, drawn with a child’s hand. Had she done that? Among the smiles were two circles, linked together, each containing one letter: G and M. Grace and Michael? But it was a child’s work. Could that be M for Mom?
She sat on the floor and sifted through nearby boxes. A picture frame held a photo of a woman and a child, sitting on a blanket in the grass, staring intently at each other. The little girl—probably Lisa—maybe four years old, with short, wispy hair, held the woman’s face in her hands. The woman was a younger version of the mother she had remembered in the kitchen. She touched the glass, as if she could reach through it and touch the woman’s hair. An ache welled up, an overwhelming sense of loss, of needing her mother, even if she couldn’t remember her. What had happened to her? To both of their parents? She needed to ask Lisa more tomorrow.
Farther down in the box was another picture, this one of a little girl swinging under that giant tree in the front yard. The girl leaned back, her mouth open in joy, her long, wavy dark hair falling behind her, little bare feet high in the air. The hair was the same as Grace’s. Closing her eyes, she tried to recall the breeze, the massive branch creaking against the pull of the ropes, the birds. It almost felt real, but was it wishful thinking? Was it her?
Something began to howl outside. She walked to the window above the washing machine. She couldn’t see anything, but the howling continued. First one, then more. Coyotes.
As she stood there, a feeling of déjà vu rushed through her. She tried to understand the strange sensation gathering inside. There was nothing odd about what she was looking at: an old washing machine, a slightly newer-looking dryer beside it, a large cast-iron basin full of dirty laundry, and, above it, an old metal chute. A churning filled her belly, like nausea, but then rushed through her system like a locomotive. She tightened her grip on the machine, weakened by the sensation, terrified of a feeling she couldn’t identify. And then it came like an alarm: a long, terrified scream.
Grace whipped her head around so quickly that she winced. There was no one else in the basement. But she heard it again, the sound of terror and panic. It was a child. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to get that noise out of her head. It faded to a whimper and she took a breath and let her head fall back. She opened her eyes, staring at that chute. The voice was gone, but her stomach twisted in knots. She thought she might get sick. Was it panic? Memory? She rushed back upstairs and latched the door shut.
As she climbed the stairs to the second floor, she instinctively stopped at the midway point. Why had she known that spindle would be loose? She stood for a moment, eyes closed, gripping the railing tightly with both hands, slowly moving her foot toward the spindles, mimicking a kick, and she heard it: the heavy weight of thick-soled boots pounding up the stairs, stomping each tread, smashing the spindles like thunderclaps. The force buckled her strength. She fell back against the wall, sitting hard on the stair. It felt as if her mind were a damaged circuit board and she’d been messing with the wires, trying to connect pathways but causing only sparks and shocks and damage.
She returned to her bed and lay there with her eyes closed for what felt like years, wishing for sleep that wouldn’t come, trying to think good thoughts—but what came instead were questions, one after the other. She played with them, sorting and reordering as though faced with a crossword puzzle, unsure which answers were needed most, which might give clues to answer other questions, what she might learn from this house. Finally, with exhaustion came sleep.
FIVE
IT WAS NINE FORTY-FIVE WHEN GRACE GOT UP. Lisa’s door was shut, but she could hear the muffled sounds of music, of Lisa singing along inside. Grace opened the door and the full blast of the song filled the entire second floor. Lisa was bouncing around, flicking paint at the walls. Specks covered the floor and ceiling. When Lisa turned to work on the area toward the door, she jumped.
“Damn, you scared me,” she said. “Good morning! What do you think of my masterpiece?” The four walls were all bright turquoise now, but Lisa’s large brush was covered in black paint. Splatters of black covered random bits of the walls. Bright-eyed and covered with paint flecks herself, she smiled with pride at her creation.
Grace had no words for the chaos. It felt a little like a nightclub without the black lights.
“How’d you sleep?” Lisa asked before launching another splatter at one of the walls.
Grace envied her energy; Lisa seemed the embodiment of her polar opposite. “I don’t know. I was up a lot. I wandered around a bit.”
“Really? I didn’t hear that. I’ve been up for ages. I’m good to go on, like, five hours.”
Had she wandered, or was that a dream? “I’m a little foggy.”
“Remember anything?” Lisa asked without stopping.
“I remember coming here yesterday.”
Lisa turned to her and almost chuckled. “Do you remember the police coming here?”
“Police,” Grace repeated, scanning her brain for the details.
Lisa stopped and came over, her tone softening. “Do you remember what they told us about Michael?”
Grace struggled to reach through the fog.
“Your ex-boyfriend?”
There were pieces there, she could see them, and yet . . .
“He’s dead,” Lisa said, like it was old news.
“Right.” Grace nodded, relieved. “Right, yes, that’s right. You made soup.”
“That’s right.” Lisa smiled at her oddly, then turned back to her work.
“Please.” Grace reached out and grabbed her arm, feeling a rush of panic. “Help me.”
Lisa looked at her arm, turning red under Grace’s grip. “Let go,” she said, her voice clipped.
Grace withdrew immediately and watched Lisa’s pinched expression shift back to the concerned look she’d worn at the hospital. “Of course I’ll help you, Grace.”
“I’m sorry. I need to know who I was. I need a history.”
Lisa pulled her in for a hug, but it felt like a stage direction that made them both uncomfortable. She patted Grace’s back softly. “It’s okay. Go get some coffee and cereal. I bought your favorite. I need to clean up the brushes. I’ll be right there.” She guided Grace to the doorway and nudged her in the right direction.
Grace cautiously took the stairs down to the kitchen and let the aroma of roasting coffee beans guide her. After pouring herself a cup, she walked to the upper cabinet to the right of the stove for the cereal. She looked around the room then. “Right there,” she murmured before walking directly to another cabinet for a bowl. She knew where everything would be, as if her body were on autopilot.
The coffee, hot and strong, felt good going down, and she sat at the table, looking out the window toward the woods. Every branch was covered in snow, creating a canopy of fluff atop the massive trunks. Lisa’s footsteps creaked on the floor above her; furniture scratched along the wood planks. She covered her ears; it was too loud, like nails on a chalkboard.
Her gaze fell to the linoleum-tiled floor, the pattern pulling her in. She fixated on the lines within each square, but th
e pattern began to move. The shapes shifted. She sensed it wasn’t real, but she lifted her feet to the safety of her chair’s support rail just in case; pushed her fists against her eyes, like she could force out the hallucination; and shifted her gaze to the living room, to the beams of morning light streaming onto the carpet. She looked down. The floor had stopped moving, so she carefully returned her feet to the ground. She drank more coffee, poured milk on her cereal, and tried a few bites, but it was no use. The nausea had returned.
When Lisa joined her in the kitchen, she sat taller despite feeling weak. “Will you tell me about Michael? And our parents? Our childhood?”
Lisa sat across from her, tapping her fingers against the sides of her chair, as if she wasn’t sure how to begin. “Okay. Michael. You’d been with him for a long time, but I can’t say I ever understood why. But then again, I’ve never had the best taste in men either.” She met Grace’s eyes. “And you and I haven’t always been close.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s just because I’m older. I moved out when you were only thirteen, so after that it just wasn’t that kind of typical sibling relationship. But you came to me and wanted to move in, and I was glad to have you.”
“I don’t understand. Why—?”
The phone rang before she could finish the thought. Lisa jumped like a startled cat. It was difficult to guess who was on the line. She was just saying, “Yes . . . okay . . . sure . . . and where are you? All right.”
Grace sat with her head in her hands, pressing hard against her temples. The pounding had started again.
Lisa hung up, came over, and crouched down beside her. “What is it?”
“Another headache.”
She went to the counter where she’d lined up the pill bottles from the hospital. “Here. It’s time for your meds. This will help.”
Grace swallowed the pills and returned to her former position, waiting for an effect.
“That was the police again,” Lisa said. “They’d like us to come in.”