The Woman in the Wall

by Patrice Kindl

  Never in my life had I been happier, or my hopes for the future brighter.

  Nine

  Dear A,

  What do you mean by saying that sometimes you feel that the dark is your only friend and then asking me to measure around my neck? You are beginning to make me very nervous, lady. And what's all this jazz about coconut? I hate coconut. I loathe and despise coconut. It's the only food besides lima beans and liver that I don't like. I guess that's something else we have in common besides our dark souls.

  Funny. You always seemed like such a normal person before. Not normal/ordinary, but normal/non-peculiar. I mean, I'm supposed to be weird, but boy have you ever got me beat!

  Apprehensively yours,

  F

  P.S. Much against my better judgment I measured my neck. 15 inches.

  Oh, dear. F was getting suspicious. I'd better sit down and write him an Andrea-type letter instead of an Anna-type letter. Well, what would Andrea be likely to write to F about? What do people talk about, especially when they don't know each other well?

  Not only was Andrea beautiful, she was clever, which made everything more difficult. I too was clever in my way, but my way was not Andrea's way. I was clever with things, while Andrea was clever with people. And vice versa: I was stupid about people, while Andrea was downright half-witted about things.

  I have evolved two strategies for dealing with people. First, I hide from them. Then, if that doesn't work, I try to pacify them with presents. Even I am beginning to see that my tactics are a somewhat inadequate response to the problem of interacting with other human beings.

  But look at Andrea! If an inanimate object doesn't live up to Andrea's expectations, her reactions are even less sophisticated: She kicks it, curses it, and discards it. Then she nags Mother into buying a new one.

  I didn't answer F's latest letter immediately. While I sewed him a brown western shirt with blue piping, I listened carefully to the conversations of the teens on the other side of the wall, trying to decide what I could write that would make me sound normal/non-peculiar, without sounding normal/ordinary, or worse yet, abnormal /peculiar.

  After much thought and observation, I wrote this letter:

  Dear F,

  Just a few things I thought you'd be interested in knowing:

  The lead guitarist of the Stinking Lemons lives exclusively on a diet of grape Kool-Aid, strawberry Twizzlers, and Hostess Cakes.

  The economics midterm was murder.

  The new Treat Williams movie is really stupid.

  Kyle Winterbottom split his head open playing soccer yesterday. He was practically leaking brains all the way back to his locker, and nobody did anything about it. His parents are probably going to sue.

  Mia was grounded for a whole month just for talking back to her mother. Can you believe it?

  A girl with pink plastic barrettes in her hair, whose name might be Kendra or else Tendra, is in love with a boy in an orange baseball cap, but he doesn't know it yet.

  Sincerely yours,

  A

  P.S. Look on the shelf in the hall closet (under the main staircase).

  I was very proud of number 6. It was the only piece of information I had found out for myself instead of simply overhearing.

  The postscript, of course, referred to the fact that I planned to put the now-completed western shirt and a box of oatmeal raisin cookies on the shelf for him to find.

  I enjoyed writing this letter. It made me feel like any normal teen-ager talking, or at least writing, to her boyfriend. I can do it too! I thought exultingly. I'm not a freak!

  So I was a little downcast at first when I got his reply.

  Dear A,

  Okay, okay, I get your point. I'll admit I didn't at first. I thought, what is this peculiar letter? Can this really be the A that I know and love so well, writing this gibberish? Or is some wacko purloining my mail? But then I figured it out. You're right. That is the kind of stuff everybody always talks about. And it's boring. And I don't want to talk about it either.

  Although it is kind of interesting about Kendra and Steve.

  Tell me something. Why do you people keep oatmeal cookies in a coat closet? By any chance, did you mean those cookies to be for me? To eat? I sure hope so, because I did.

  Besides being delicious, they were very reassuring. I have this recurring nightmare in which somebody like Tiffany Jacobs stands up in the middle of assembly at school and starts reading this correspondence out loud. Tiffany Jacobs would never bake me cookies, so you see, she can't possibly be the one writing to me.

  By the way, I hate to criticize your choice of friends, but c'mon, A, Tiffany Jacobs?

  Actually, it seems pretty incredible that you would bake me cookies either. I hope you don't think you've guessed who I am and got it wrong. I am not Foster Addams, for instance. Sorry, but I'm afraid I'm nothing at all like Foster Addams. By the way, I think he's kind of a jerk, don't you? Or don't you? Sometimes you act like you really like him.

  Love,

  F

  P.S. There was a brand-new shirt all wrapped up in red satin ribbons underneath the cookies. Did somebody in your family misplace a birthday present?

  P.P.S. You never said what you thought of Mr. Albright. I mean, isn't he dating your mother? I heard they're getting kind of serious.

  I smiled and sighed over the first nine-tenths of F's letter. How stupid of me not to put a note with the shirt! And then I read the post-postscript. My disappointment about the shirt and my failure at writing an Andrea-type letter instead of an Anna-type letter evaporated instantly.

  Chasms gaped beneath my feet. What? What did he mean? How could this Mr. Albright possibly be "dating" my mother? And what did that ominous phrase "getting kind of serious" mean?

  At first, naturally, I assumed that it was some sort of a sick joke, or possibly the result of a fleeting bout of insanity on F's part. But with dawning horror I realized that this nightmarish notion might quite possibly be true. Strictly speaking, the law maintained that my mother was a widow. For her to go out on a date with another man was probably not actually illegal. Broad-minded people might not even consider it immoral.

  But—but how could she be so cruel? Why, for all she knew, my father might quite easily still be alive. How would he feel if he came back after all these years only to find my mother consorting with strange men? The very idea was unthinkable. Why hadn't I known about this before?

  Forgetting F entirely, I hurried to my peephole into the library, the room my mother used for an office. I ducked my head down, screwed up one eye, and peered through. My jaw dropped. There was a man in there with her. He was leaning back in a chair, my father's chair, and smirking in a truly horrible way at my mother.

  After a few moments, I straightened up and massaged the small of my back with my thumbs. Well, that was one explanation of why I hadn't been aware of this Mr. Albright situation before. I had to twist myself up like a pretzel these days in order to get my eye down to the library peephole.

  I strained my ears to hear their conversation. Unfortunately they were sitting at the far end of the library, which was a large room. The shelves of books and the heavy brocade curtains and massive Victorian furniture deadened the sound so that at first I heard only scraps and tag ends of their talk.

  "...dinner and a movie tonight, Elaine?"

  So it was true. Elaine was my mother's first name. How dare he?

  My mother murmured something in reply. It must have been a refusal, since he began to argue.

  "...surely they're old enough! Just put your foot down. You're a slave to your children, Elaine."

  I bent again and squinted at my mother's face. She was weakening, I could tell. No, Mother, I thought, don't do it. Remember your wedding vows.

  "...don't understand," she said, her voice strengthening. "I know it's idiotic and irrational of me, but I can't help feeling that if I go out frivolling with you, Frank, I'll be punished for it. I have this image in my mind of the whole
place going up in flames with my daughters inside, the minute I step outside the front door."

  He made a rude noise. "That is idiotic and irrational. But if it would get you out of here now and then, I'd be happy to bring the kids along."

  She shook her head, smiling. "Irrational fears aren't calmed by rational solutions, Frank. But," she hesitated and her voice dropped, "... admit I would enjoy it."

  "Of course you would," he said briskly. Then, "Have you given any more thought to my other suggestion?"

  "No." My mother's voice came through strong and clear. "No, Frank, if our getting married means my selling the house and leaving Bitter Creek, I can't do it, and I can't tell you why. I'm sorry; I don't mean to make a mystery of it, but I just can't."

  Married! Selling the house!

  I straightened up so abruptly that I hit my head against a wall stud with an audible crack! I groaned aloud.

  "What was that?" The man's voice was suddenly much closer to me.

  "Nothing!" My mother's voice was also much closer. "I didn't hear a thing!"

  I reeled in agony and clutched at my head.

  "If you didn't hear anything, why are you shouting like that?"

  "I am not shouting!"

  They were standing inches away from me. I held my breath.

  "Relax, darling. It's only a mouse or something behind the books. Here, I'll just—"

  "Get away from that wall, Frank!"

  "Elaine, what on earth—?"

  "Put those books back on the shelf," my mother said in a voice of steel.

  "Very well." Mr. Albright's voice was cold as well.

  I smiled through my tears. They were quarrelling. All was not lost.

  "I wish I knew what put you into such a panic, Elaine," Mr. Albright said grumpily. "You are—very odd about this house. And this, as I've said before and will no doubt say again, is an odd house. Very odd, in fact."

  Mother was silent for a moment. Then she sighed deeply and said, "I'm sorry, Frank. I'm all on edge today. I'm sure you're right; it's nothing more than a mouse inside the walls."

  "Well, for goodness' sake, woman, don't sound so tragic about it. We'll put down some poison and get rid of it."

  "No!" she said sharply. "No, I don't want to do that, just in case."

  "Just in case what?"

  "Nothing. I'm sorry, Frank, I really am. About everything." Her voice faded out on 'everything,' and I concluded that she had left the room.

  "Elaine?" he called after her, his voice sounding a little forlorn.

  Ha! Let him suffer.

  "We'll have dinner." Her voice came back to us from afar. "Wait while I dress."

  I gnashed my teeth.

  "Elaine?" he called. After several moments went by without a response, I heard him fling himself into an armchair, making a disgruntled noise that sounded something like a cross between gargling and growling.

  "Aarrghh!"

  I leaned back down and peered through my peephole. He was back sitting in my father's chair again. And as if in mimicry of my poor vanished father, he had barricaded himself behind a newspaper.

  I crouched there staring at him, unblinking, until my eye teared with the strain and my limbs stiffened and creaked. I didn't care; I didn't feel it. A murderous rage sang in my blood and roared in my ears. I knew at last what it was to hate without fear or restraint.

  Ten

  So this was what had been brewing behind my back. How deceitful my family was, how sly!

  They must, each and every one of them, be aware of this ... this conspiracy. If F, a mere visitor to the house, knew, my sisters must. When F said that Mother and Mr. Albright were getting serious, he meant that they were thinking of getting married.

  And no one else had thought to mention it to me. I could not imagine a situation that more directly threatened my happiness and security. My mother feared my death by fire; how much more merciful that would be than this!

  The fact that my mother had refused so firmly did not comfort me very much. I saw how quickly she gave in about going out to dinner and a movie with this interloper. How much longer would she hold out against marriage? She was saying no now; would she still be saying no tomorrow?

  And there was something else about my mother's manner that disturbed me. When she agreed with Mr. Albright that the noise they had heard was nothing more than a mouse in the walls, she sounded like she meant it. Yet she must have known it was me; that was why she tried to steer Mr. Albright away from the walls and denied that there was anything to hear.

  So why did she sound so sad when she finally conceded that my involuntary cry was only a rodent squeaking? And what did she mean by refusing to put down poison "just in case"? Just in case I was still here and might eat it by mistake? Why on earth wouldn't I still be here? Where else could I be?

  I felt more and more uneasy as I thought about it. She had wasted no time in having my father presumed dead as soon as the law allowed. Just because no one had laid eyes on him for seven years, Mother and the District of Columbia, where he had disappeared, had been prepared to scratch him off the list of the living. That apparently put an end to any obligation Mother felt toward her husband. After all, here she was, a bare eleven years after his disappearance, being wined and dined by other men and listening to their marriage proposals.

  I began gnawing nervously at my fingernails with my teeth. How many years did New York State require to elapse before death could be presumed? Would it be a longer or shorter time than Washington, D.C., I wondered? We had a book that would tell me, but it was on the library shelf, and that awful man was still in there.

  I would have to wait him out. I climbed into my armchair and wrapped the quilt tightly around my body until I resembled a butterfly's cocoon. How long, I asked myself with rising dread, had it been since anyone had last seen me?

  Five years. That was all the time New York deemed necessary before death could be presumed.

  The hateful man and my mother had gone out together alone and unchaperoned to eat, drink, and be merry, leaving me to read the law and reflect upon my fate.

  After five measly little years of non-appearance, the good people of New York State would decide you were no longer among the living and issue a death certificate with your name on it. The legal system seemed to me to be positively panting for the opportunity to start shovelling dirt onto your grave.

  Let this be a warning to you not to retire to the privacy of your room for a spell of meditation and self-communion, or the next thing you know you'll be reading your obituary in the newspaper.

  My mother and my oldest sister had not seen me for seven years.

  Kirsty had seen me now and then, but not for at least three years. All of those sightings were extremely brief, and none occurred after she was over nine years old. Would the law take the word of a twelve-year-old who wasn't really sure but who thought she might have seen her sister out of the corner of her eye three years ago?

  The book in which I read about presumption of death also volunteered the information that a diligent search must be made for the missing person before he or she can be declared deceased. I tried to imagine what it would be like, being diligently sought after by the authorities.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and curled up into a ball, whimpering softly to myself.

  They would tear down my walls and lay bare my secret life.

  Of course they would. My family might not be certain, but they must suspect that I had retreated into the walls, and they would tell that to the people who came to look for me.

  The authorities, whom I now pictured as large beefy men with tattoos, leather jackets, and chains, could not possibly fit into my passageways, the big apes, even if they could find the entrance. No, they would have to smash their way in. They'd come after me with sledgehammers and crowbars and great, gleaming axes.

  After a few moments of whining, snivelling panic, I regained control. Stop it, I commanded myself. Don't be ridiculous! Maybe my family hadn't been seeing mu
ch of me recently, but they had plenty of evidence of my presence, didn't they? Think of all the things I did for them: the snacks prepared, the clothing sewed, the repairs made to our mutual home.

  But then I thought uncomfortably of how little I had been doing for the last few years. Immediately after the onset of adolescence, I was too depressed to do anything but feel sorry for myself and then, once I snapped out of my dejection, the house was too full of Andrea's friends for me to make much progress on repairs.

  Frantically I tried to recall something, anything I had done lately that would prove my existence. Nothing. There was nothing. I had been angry with my family, believing that they had chased F away. The tuxedo I started for Andrea lay in ruins in a corner. The only gifts I had made for anyone in years were the cookies and western shirt presented to F.

  F! F could tell them I was here! F could...

  No, he couldn't. F thought I was Andrea.

  I burst into tears. At first, out of force of habit, I wept silently, but then, in the extremity of my misery, I began to sob aloud, then to wail, a thin, keening sound like the wind in the chimney. What did I care who heard me? They didn't even believe that I existed anymore.

  Even if my family didn't get the authorities to tear down my walls, they were going to move away and leave me. Mother would marry that Frank Albright. And then they would SELL THE HOUSE. With me in it.

  Such a horrible possibility had never occurred to me before. I knew, of course, that people did buy and sell houses. After all, Father had bought this house before I was born (no doubt the reason why the terrible Mr. Albright wanted to remove my mother from it). But it had never occurred to me that anyone in the family would consider selling our home.

  What would I do if they did? I would be alone in the world. Even worse, I wouldn't be alone; I would have a whole new set of people moving in. I wept louder. I wanted my own people—Mother and Andrea and Kirsty—not some alien family with whom I had nothing in common.