Invisible Ellen

by Shari Shattuck

  Ellen shuddered, then remembered the cashier who had said, Have a nice day, ladies, and wondered if it might be true. The idea felt like an assault to Ellen. It was one thing to speak to a shy individual in a safe place, another thing altogether to say Ta-da to the general public.

  “I don’t want that,” Ellen said quickly.

  “Then you won’t.” Justice shrugged. “I’m just saying.”

  “Well, I’m saying this,” Ellen said, and the siblings both reacted slightly at the confidence in her voice. Ellen announced, “I’m buying dinner tonight.”

  “Okay, thanks,” Temerity said.

  But Justice pretended to be offended. Shaking his head, he said, “You are so bossy!”

  Was she? It was, after all, the second time she had given a command. Ellen discovered that it was a relief to be decisive for a change.

  After dinner, Temerity went to her room and Justice said he had some reading to do. He asked Ellen if she wanted him to set her up with the TV or a movie, but she said no. But she knew it would be hours before she could sleep again, and it had started to mist lightly outside with the promise of heavier precipitation. She was standing near one of the big windows that had been cracked open to let in the fresh air, and she breathed in the soft, exhilarating weather. Ellen had always loved the rain. She didn’t understand why people rushed through it, avoided it and ducked out of it, but she was glad. It left the sidewalks and the parks blissfully deserted, just for her.

  “I think I’ll go out for a while, actually,” Ellen said.

  Justice squinted at her. “You’re going to walk in the rain.”

  She tilted her head and tried to justify what she assumed Justice would find a silly impulse. “I just like to. It feels like . . . I’m a part of it.”

  He nodded. “That’s what I like about it, blending right into the air and water around me.”

  Her breath caught, surprised that he understood. “Exactly.” It was strange, almost threatening, to have someone claim as their own a sensation Ellen had thought of as so uniquely personal, but the unpleasant gust of possessive jealousy faded quickly away, dissolving into a warm, breezy sense of companionship.

  Justice offered her a big black umbrella, checked to make sure she had her key, and told her to be careful. Ellen took all three suggestions, thinking this is what it must be like to have a big brother, or anyone, who worried about you. The responsibility of his concern made her uneasy because she wasn’t used to accounting for anyone but herself. So she told him she wouldn’t be too late and he said she’d better not be or she’d be grounded.

  Ellen went down the stairs at a good clip and opened the heavy fire door into the alley. Her first deep breath of the moist air surprised her with its cloying sweetness, and then she realized that the heady smell of musky blossoms was not coming from outside but from under her huge army jacket. The perfume had marinated into her skin during her two-hour bath and had intensified as her body warmed from the walk down the stairs. When she paused it wafted about her like a cloth of fragrant garden swathed around her shoulders. The image of a scarf knit of roses made her giggle as she stepped out into the night.

  She went along, admiring the way the light danced on the wet sidewalks and how beautiful the city looked washed clean and glimmering. She wandered to the little park where she had gone into the dog run with Runt and Temerity and sat on a bench, still dry, under a huge weeping willow. The sound of the rain on the branches was lush and full of some mystery that felt sacred to Ellen, who knew no religion except this, but she knew that it was true.

  After a while, she was jogged by a niggling sensation that there was something she should do, or maybe had forgotten. The feeling wasn’t specific, so she got up and started walking again. Letting her feet carry her where they wanted to go, not thinking about it, just feeling and following the vigorous currents of the shiny world around her.

  So it seemed completely natural when she found herself outside Saint Vincent’s Hospital, though she recognized with faint surprise that she had walked so far.

  Through the glass front, she could see into the lobby. The guard’s desk was deserted. On the counter, a printed sign was propped up that read BACK IN FIVE MINUTES. DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT A PASS.

  Ellen glanced around. No one. She went in, hurried past the security desk and went up in the elevator. The halls were almost empty and only the stray nurse or doctor passed her with purposeful strides, absorbed in their concerns and responsibility. Having been there once before, Ellen found the room she was seeking without difficulty. She listened at the closed door for a moment but heard nothing, so very slowly she pushed it open a crack.

  It was muted and dark. The only light came from the monitor and a silvery, filtered sheen from outside lights glowing through the wet glass. Ellen could make out a ghostly silhouette in front of the window. The person’s back was to her, the hands raised and laid flat against the glass and forehead pressed between them, as though willing her body to flow through it and escape.

  Ellen pushed the door open only enough to slip through and advanced inside, closing it behind her. When she was a few feet in, she stood in reverent silence, recognizing the desperation that pervaded the small room.

  Then the form at the window spoke softly. “You smell of Peterhof garden in spring.”

  Ellen smiled in spite of being caught out. “Irena?” she asked.

  The woman did not turn, but her silver-gray figure lowered her hands and pressed them against her face.

  “Yes?”

  “Are you doing okay?”

  “I’m want for sleep, that is all. Is it time for medicine?” she asked, her voice exhausted and befuddled.

  “I don’t know. I’m not a nurse. I’m . . . I know you, from work. My name is Ellen.”

  Irena turned now, but Ellen could make out nothing of her face except a gray featureless oval, deep with shadows, and Irena couldn’t have seen much more of her. The announcement didn’t seem to have any effect on Irena, or maybe, Ellen thought, she just didn’t have the will left to care. So it was a shock when the Russian woman said the last thing she expected: “Yes. I know you.”

  “You do?” Ellen was taken aback, but not as much as she thought she would be.

  “Sit down, if you want.” Irena sank into the chair next to the crib. She reached in almost automatically and adjusted a blanket. “He is breathing okay now,” she said.

  “That’s good.” Ellen moved through the dimness to the other side of the raised cradle and looked in. Her eyes were adjusting to the low light and she could make out the outline of tiny fists and the tubes that led under the blanket. Remembering what Irena had told the Crows, and wanting to understand the situation, Ellen asked, “Where is his, you know, real mother?”

  Irena twitched slightly. “Dead,” she said quietly. She drew a sharp breath and added, “His father don’t want complication.” She shivered slightly.

  “Oh.” She didn’t press Irena for details. It was obvious anyway. Curious of what bond might be between them, Ellen asked, “Do you love the baby?”

  In the gloom, Irena sighed. “I don’t want for him to be sick, but I don’t want to be mother.” It was simple and honest, but not complete.

  “And you can’t give him up, because, well, because of what happened to his mother,” Ellen said, then went on, “and you can’t let yourself love him, because he won’t stay.”

  “They never stay,” Irena said, her voice distant and detached.

  “That’s true,” Ellen said. “Or, it has been for us, hasn’t it? I don’t think it’s that way for everyone.”

  “Why did you come here?” Irena asked.

  It was Ellen’s turn to shrug. “I’m not sure. I guess I wanted to see how you’re doing. I knew it was your night off too, and I thought you’d be here. I know you don’t know me.”

  “You don’t like for
anyone to know. You don’t want to be seen, but some small times, I do. I understand, so I say nothing.”

  “You see me?” Ellen asked.

  “Sometimes, but then I forget you are there. You are not like the others. You always watch, so you know.”

  Ellen wasn’t sure what to make of that. “I don’t know much,” she said with a deep breath, looking down at the crib and feeling very ignorant indeed.

  “You know that I am . . . too much . . . uh . . . like a bird . . . in cage.”

  “‘Trapped.’” Ellen fed her the word. “I was too,” she added. “I guess I still am. Maybe that’s why I came tonight, to tell you that sometimes something can happen in a minute, and then everything is different.”

  From the shadow in the chair came a long, ragged exhale. “Not for me,” Irena whispered. “One way only . . . to get away . . .” She trailed off, leaving the dark thought unspoken. Then she said, “I want, I try to hope, but . . . it is . . . too much pain.”

  “I understand,” Ellen said. And she did, she had lived with so much anguish and so little hope her whole life that she really did know what it was to shut that off because the hurt was just too heavy, too dense to carry if she acknowledged its massive presence. She had survived her isolation by looking outside herself. But her advantage, ironically, had been that she was alone. She’d been able to slough off her tormentors by shutting them out. Irena did not have that option.

  They sat in silence for a few moments while the drizzle pattered softly at the window. Then Irena said, “I don’t want to go on.”

  “I know,” Ellen said. She didn’t plead with Irena not to end it. She didn’t say she should hold on or believe that things would get better.

  Because she didn’t know if they would. And it wasn’t for her to judge how much pain someone else could live with before they had to make it stop.

  So she said nothing, only sat quietly and listened to the constant consolation of the rain. Much later, when she heard the deeper breathing of Irena’s fitful sleep, she got quietly to her feet and went out, leaving only the lingering perfume of roses.

  When Ellen arrived extra-early at work on Saturday, she went to her locker, put on her smock and then went straight to the storage closet to get a cart. She took all of the supplies off its lower rack and added several of the extra-large black trash bags to her supplies on top. Then she headed out onto the floor.

  The store was still in full swing, but this close to closing, people were moving quickly around the aisles to finish their shopping and get home. As they had arranged, Ellen went to the far end of the paper goods aisle, where she spotted Temerity and Justice. They had a cart with two items in it: a pack of diapers and a paper shredder, neither of which would be of any use to them, nor would they be purchased. Ellen angled the cart to block a small triangle of space next to the shelves in one of the camera’s blind spots and handed one of the trash bags to Justice.

  “Commencing operation lawn bag,” Justice said with a smirk. “In you go.” He opened the bag and helped Temerity step into it like a sack-race contestant while she stooped down behind the cart, then guided her onto the bottom of it. She lay down on her side in a ball and held the giant bag loosely gathered over her head.

  “Remember,” Justice quoted the labeling, “this bag is not a toy.”

  “Be back in a minute,” Ellen whispered, and she wheeled the cart, much more unruly with its added weight, through to the back. She deposited Temerity in an oversized broom closet, where she had turned two buckets upside down for seats in anticipation. As she closed the door, Temerity said, “Hey, it’s dark in here.” Ellen automatically started to reach for the light before she heard Temerity giggle. She shushed her and shut the door.

  As the process was repeated with Justice, the announcement was made to bring all purchases up front, as the store was closing in five minutes.

  After depositing him with his sister, Ellen hurried back to the floor and began to empty the trash bins near one of the sample stations so she could keep an eye on the two security guards sweeping the store. One of them unzipped the tent in the camping display near the registers, looked in and then moved on. The only customers left were now in the checkout lanes. As soon as the guards had completed their check, she returned to the closet.

  “Okay,” she said, pulling the door shut behind her and switching on the light, causing Justice to squint and cover his eyes. “Let’s go. I’ve picked spots for you. Temerity, you’ll be in a tent display between the cash registers and the office, where you can hear what’s going on. Justice, you can actually go on top of the roof of the front office. It’s like a block built into the corner next to the front door. Did you see it?”

  “Reconnaissance complete.”

  “Whatever that means.” Temerity snorted.

  “It means I checked it out,” he said with a sniff of his own.

  “Did you learn that from your G.I. Joe doll?”

  “Action figure,” Justice snapped automatically, “and I wouldn’t talk if—”

  Ellen cut them off. “There’s a ladder built into the wall on the back side. You’ll have to be quiet so no one hears you up there, but it’s the perfect place for you to be. None of the cleaners or the security will bother to look up there, and it will give you a perfect view of everything going on. You’ve got your cell phone?”

  He held it up. Temerity displayed hers as well. “Okay. I’m going to be cleaning the camping display, so I’ll be close to you both. We all know what to do?”

  “Yes,” Justice said, licking his lips nervously. “It’s the ‘why’ that still evades me.”

  “Shut up,” his sister hissed in the tight air of the closet. “We’re catching bad guys.”

  “I know that,” he snapped, then puffed his cheeks out and made a raspberry sound as he released the breath. “Sorry, I get sarcastic when I’m about to break the law. What’s the most important thing to remember?” he asked.

  “Never back into a radiator when your pants are down?” Temerity suggested.

  “Nobody gets involved, do you hear me? All we do is wait, and the second it looks like something is going to go down, we call the police.”

  Ellen took a deep breath. She nodded.

  The relocation process was repeated. Ellen wheeled the cart into the corner behind the office and after a quick check around, she whispered, “Okay, now!” Justice fought his way out of the bag and went up the metal rungs fastened into the wall. The second he disappeared over the ledge, she went back for Temerity.

  This was more excitement and exercise than Ellen usually had in a week, and she was relieved that, though she was breathing hard and perspiring, she was not finding it overly taxing. Once Temerity was loaded, she pushed the cart to the camping display, where foldable chairs, a portable barbecue complete with accessories, coolers, fishing gear and a tent were all set up around a fake fire. The tent had two entrances, one of them facing the registers. Ellen pulled the cart right up to the other side of the tent and unzipped the door enough for the slim girl to get through, then she pretended to be dusting the equipment while Temerity slid, snakelike, through the opening. Ellen rezipped it, parked the cart along the side of the tent and pulled out a rag to wipe down the chairs just as the older security guard locked the sliding glass doors behind the last customer, then took up his next position, standing outside the office door to watch while the cashiers began to count out their registers. The junior guard retreated to his post on the loading docks for the evening deliveries.

  The Boss was distinctly sweaty, Ellen thought as she watched him pace around the front, trying to appear busy. He continually passed the glass doors at the front and scanned the parking lot outside, as though expecting someone, and he checked his watch obsessively. Ellen frowned. This guy was a joke. Even if she hadn’t overheard him plotting, she would have known he was up to something. For that matter, she thoug
ht, even Temerity would be able to see he was up to something.

  Several of the cashiers were securing their bundles of various bills with rubber bands and recording their totals. The Boss went into the office, using the magnetic security card lent to him by Billy the sports fan, and came out with the empty cash bag. It was a simple thing, heavy cream canvas with a zippered top. He started with the register nearest the office, taking the cash and recording the amount onto a clipboard, waiting for the clerk to sign off for the amounts. The security guard stayed a few feet behind him, looking bored but competent.

  When the Boss reached the farthest register, the young checker was not ready yet. He apologized when the Boss clucked and shook his head, snapping at him to get a move on and glancing nervously to the door every time a car’s headlights flashed past it in the dark parking lot.

  Moving around the back of the tent, Ellen reviewed everyone’s positions. Only the Boss, the slow checker, and the security guard were still milling around the front. The rest of the daytime employees had gone by now, disappearing to the locker room to collect their things and claim what was left of their Saturday night. Two cleaners were working down the first aisle near the pharmacy. Ellen recognized Rosa and Irena, but they were a good distance away. From where she stood, Ellen could barely make out the shape of Justice’s head and shoulders where he was lying almost flat on the roof of the office, watching the Boss. It was reassuring to know he was there, cell phone in one hand at the ready.

  It was quiet, everything was happening as it normally did, and Ellen was just beginning to wonder if the Boss had lost his nerve after all, when she saw it.

  Through the front window, headlights were coming straight toward the doors. This in itself was not unusual, but in the darkness outside, Ellen could see that the lights were moving too fast and getting faster. She could hear the gunning of the car’s engine as it grew close, neither turning nor slowing as it reached the end of the parking aisle. The lights glared brighter and hotter through the glass, and the car whipped into and through the cross lane that ran directly in front of the store. There was a grating scrape of metal on cement as the car’s wheels bounced up over the curb. The security guard and the clerk spun in unison toward the alarming sound, then instinctively shielded their faces with their arms as the car smashed right through the glass doors, dragging the metal frame for a few feet before the frame won, restraining the revving car. The car’s single-wheel drive was still spinning the front left wheel, but the puny, bald tire was unable to grab enough traction to pull the car free from the metal net. A thin woman was slumped over the steering wheel.