The Secret Room

by Sandra Block

  “I guess.”

  “No, not I guess. You got out. You got adopted, sent to good schools, and ended up with a good job in a good place. You have a different perspective on all this. I was eight when this happened. That’s young, but not that young.” His breathing sounds almost labored. “I remember every goddamned thing. And I’m sorry, I don’t need a minute to think about it. I don’t need to consider her side of things. You know just as well as I do. She’s a manipulative demon. I’m not afraid to say it. A demon. And I won’t believe that she’s found God now, or any other piece of crap that comes out of her mouth.”

  “Okay,” I say, in a calming tone, turning off the Bluetooth and grabbing the phone. “I get it, Jack.”

  His breathing has steadied. “Now, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get angry with you. You’re not the one at fault here.”

  “No offense taken, really,” I assure him, walking in the brisk, cold night. The moon reflects off a row of cars. My head is starting to clear, as if the Motrin is finally taking effect. “I have to get going.” I’m meeting Mike, Scotty, and Kristy for a little holiday shopping. “I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “You didn’t, Zoe. Just be careful, okay? Sofia is tricky, always has been. She’s not a normal human. She’s not in God’s image, at all. And I appreciate you trying to dig deeper into that. I applaud you for it, even. But you don’t have to. I’m telling you right here and now. She’s the devil. And you don’t need the devil on your side.”

  * * *

  Mike rubs the purple rings under his eyes and lets out another yawn. As the low man on the totem pole, he’s been covering for everyone else’s vacation the last few weeks. “Do you think my mom would like this?” He picks up a prewrapped, glitzy gift bag filled with hot pink tissue paper.

  “Yeah, she’d love it.” I grab an almond-colored lotion and plunk it in the basket. “Coconut for Jason, and matching hand sanitizer.”

  Mike picks up the tester lotion and gives it a sniff. “Not bad.”

  “You want some?”

  “Nah, I’d smell like a beach.”

  “Ooh,” Kristy says. “Babe, what do you think of this for my mom?” She holds up the same glitzy hot pink package, calling out to Scotty across the aisle.

  “Looks good, babe,” he calls back, picking up shaving supplies in the teeny, black-signified men’s section, a safe harbor in this touchy-feely-smelly women’s space.

  “Okay, babe,” Kristy calls back, putting it in her basket. I kinda want to vomit when they call each other babe. Scotty wanders over toward us. “Here, can you check out?” Kristy asks, thrusting the basket at him. “I have to hit the Apple Store.”

  “Sure.” He takes the toppling basket from her, gazing longingly across the hall at the Apple Store himself, as Kristy strides off. Then he shuffles back to the men’s section.

  Looking around at the aisles, I wish I could get Aubrey a little something but know I can’t. And anything here would be lost on Andre, if he even wanted anything other than a comic book. Examining some rose-scented bath oil, I feel as if I’m forgetting someone and suddenly realize who it is, my eyes growing moist.

  My mom. Not my birth mom, but my real mom. Sarah Goldman, up in heaven with all her faculties now, perhaps taking a lovely rose oil bath this very moment. I wonder if Scotty is thinking about her, too.

  “Do we have everyone covered, then?” Mike asks, through another yawn.

  “I think so,” I say, quickly swallowing back tears. I throw a freesia lotion into the basket. “Are you getting XO Serena anything?” I ask him, joking.

  “You think I should?”

  It is not the answer I expected. I stare at him a second. “Why, did she get you something?” He looks at the floor, but doesn’t answer. “Wait a second, what did she get you?”

  He pauses, looking sheepish. “A pen.”

  “A pen?” I repeat, stupidly. “Like a Bic pen?”

  “No, not like a Bic pen, Zoe,” he says, a bit irked. “Who buys someone a Bic pen for Christmas?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t celebrate it, obviously.”

  “She bought me a nice pen, okay? A Parker, I think.”

  “Oh well. La-di-da. A Parker pen.”

  “I’m keeping it at work, Zoe. I knew you’d get upset. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

  We don’t say anything for a moment. Maybe it’s the sleep deprivation or my hangover or both, because we never fight. I hate fighting with Mike. Even if some girl did give him the biggest phallic symbol there is. “Here,” I say with a sigh, “give her some lavender lotion. A little one. It says friends, but just friends.”

  We wander over to a painfully long line, which wraps around a tower of hand sanitizers, and Scotty heads over to join us. Mike gives me an apologetic smile. “You really think lavender lotion says all that?”

  “It’s better than a pen,” I mutter.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The first time we made love was after I killed Barbara Donalds.

  Tell me every detail, you said, your forest-green eyes glowing.

  So I told you about it. It was too easy, in the end.

  You got me the pills, and I ground them up with a spoon. Then, during breakfast, I brought her over some hot chocolate. It was as simple as that. I made it seem like a gift. That I knew she was having a hard time and just wanted to do a little something to help. Barb Donalds was a nice lady, trusting.

  She was ever so grateful while I was murdering her.

  I could tell she was getting sleepy by the end of breakfast. She was starting to slur her words, so I made sure she got over to her cell. She said she wasn’t feeling great and was going to take a nap before her grief counseling group. I put the pill bottle under the sheets, with the paper name torn off.

  The 327 was called an hour later.

  You were lying down on your stomach with your chin in your hands, listening to me, entranced in the story. And when I was done, you kissed me.

  And we made love, in our beautiful, awful, musty storage room.

  I don’t want to ruin it by describing it in the journal. We made love, and it was everything I thought it would be. Afterward, I cried. I know it’s a cliché, but I did. You wiped off my tears, and we lay there on the floor for a while, and we talked.

  When I think back on it now, it’s pathetic. That’s the only time we ever really talked.

  How did you end up in this place? you asked me.

  No one told you?

  I want to hear it from you, you said.

  So I told you. I let it out, all the stuff I’ve been holding back in this place. Like a flood, an uncontrollable torrent, the words rushed out. I told you what I did. I told you about my mother’s death, what I did to her. I told you about my sister, how she can barely stand me now. I told you how much I hate it here, every single second except when I’m with you. I told you that you are the only one who makes this place just barely livable.

  You told me about how your brother died. You told me you still cry when you think about him. That you miss him. You said you never told anyone about it before. But you could tell me because you trust me. That being with me was like being at home.

  I told you that you are my home. And we started kissing again, for the hundredth time. My lips were swollen from all our kissing.

  Then, in the middle of a kiss, you said you needed another name. I was disappointed at breaking off the moment, but I understood. I said I’d try, and you praised me then, saying how well I’d done so far. I couldn’t help the smile growing on my face. You said if I kept helping you, you’d keep helping me. And I shushed you because I didn’t want to talk about that stuff. I didn’t want to think about that stuff. It made me feel too bad. I just wanted to be with you.

  You said you had another idea, another way to get to her. You paused, waiting for me to ask you about it, eager to tell me. But I didn’t ask. Because I was tired of talking about her. And truthfully, I didn’t want to know.
r />   Then you were quiet for a bit, thinking about your new plan, I guess, and finally you climbed on top of me again, for something to do maybe. And this time you plunged inside me, not tenderly, but hard, and I was sore, but I didn’t care. Because I loved you.

  I still think about that moment, sometimes. Lying there on the cold floor, taking every thrust, gripping the taut sinew of muscle on your arms while you rocked me as hard as you could. You wanted to hurt me, I realize now, because that turns you on, hurting people. But I didn’t care about that right then. If I’m honest, I still don’t.

  Loving you is a fate, not a choice.

  Chapter Sixteen

  My hangover has somehow morphed into a sort of flu.

  And there’s no time for that because we have about a million things to do to get ready for the invasion of Mike’s family. He has already put my Chanukah decorations to shame. First, we have a sweet-smelling Scotch Pine—and we went over the merits of every species at the tree farm—towering in the corner, complete with silver and bronze globe ornaments, which sent me into a mild OCD fit of making sure they were exactly evenly distributed on the tree. Holly is hung down the railing, a homey Santa is on the front porch getting snow on his bag, and a wreath is on the front door. I feel a bit like a stranger in my own house, but Mike looks so cheerful and chipper that it would have been churlish to object.

  I have swept dog hair from the most improbable places imaginable, Windexed the windows though the sharp smell is nauseating, and moved my tower of forensic psychiatry books to our room, and now we are awaiting our company.

  Mike has debriefed me on his whole family. Jeff is his older brother, an accountant, and his oldest brother is Anthony (not Tony) who is also an accountant. Erica is Jeff’s wife, and they have one child, Nathan, who is three years old and utterly worshipped by Mike’s mom, whose name is Margaret, but everyone calls her Peggy, which is apparently commonplace among Catholics.

  We are waiting for them to arrive now, Mike nervously tidying the kitchen still. Arthur is lying down, exhausted from all the activity, and I have the strong urge to lie down on the floor right beside him.

  “Did you hear from Scotty?” he asks.

  “No, why?”

  “No reason. I just wondered how it went with Kristy’s mom.”

  “Oh yeah.” Mike is caring enough to remember the fact that he was meeting Kristy’s family. I had forgotten all about it.

  Mike finally sits down on the couch beside me with a happy sigh. “You okay?”

  “I’ll be fine. Just coming down with something.”

  He assesses me clinically. “Did you get your flu shot?”

  I lean down to pet Arthur, stalling. “I keep meaning to.”

  He groans. “Zoe, I tell you every year—”

  I am saved by the doorbell as the first wave of family arrives, climbing out of a cab, though Mike offered to pick them up more than once. I open the door to a shorter, heavier, slightly older version of Mike. “Hello!” Jeff sings out, merrily. Mike reaches over for a male hug, and Erica trails behind him carting a red-cheeked, cranky-looking Nathan. Mike’s mom (Margaret/Peggy) runs over for a hug as well, looking up at me in poorly hidden surprise. My actual height often surprises people upon the first meeting. It’s one thing to say you’re over six feet and another thing to actually inhabit that space.

  “Come on in,” Mike says.

  Presents are placed around the tree, Nathan is given a snack, small talk is had, and three hours later the whole family is in the warm kitchen, which smells of turkey and thyme. I wander around feeling like an extra thumb, trying to be helpful and failing. Finally we sit around our dining room table though I’m hardly even hungry. I grab for a pair of tongs as everyone closes their eyes and crosses themselves (including Mike), and Nathan stares at me with open disdain, catching me out as the least adult, and certainly the least Catholic, at the table.

  “So,” Peggy says, “I hear you work with criminals.” She makes it sound salacious.

  “That’s true,” I say, scooping out some cheesy potatoes, though my stomach is now churning.

  “That must be fascinating.” Her brown eyes light up. Mike definitely has her eyes.

  “It is,” I say agreeably, wondering how much longer I’ll be able to do it before the warden kicks me out. “And what do you do?” I ask, turning to Erica.

  She is cutting turkey on Nathan’s plate. “Oh, I stay at home.”

  “Great,” I answer.

  The conversation dies then to the sound of cutlery. “I was doing some interior designing,” she says, as if apologizing for her current stay-at-home status, though it’s not necessary.

  “Yeah,” Jeff says, supportively, “she was great.”

  “And I might get back to it when Nate’s in kindergarten.”

  “No,” Nathan says, simply.

  “No?” Erica laughs.

  “I want Mommy home.”

  “Well, I’m sure you do, honey, but Mommy will have to do some work eventually.” She smiles at us all, a you-know-how-it-is-with-kids smile.

  “No.” A fork is slammed. “Mommies stay home.” Everyone stares at Nathan, who’s clearly been watching a lot of Mad Men lately.

  “Not all mommies,” she answers, singsong.

  “Mommy stays home!” His voice rises to an eardrum-bursting level, his eyes glistening with tears.

  “I’m sure you guys can work that out over the next year,” I say pleasantly, as if the three-year-old understands logic.

  “Mommy stays home!”

  “Here,” Erica says, flushed. “Have some turkey, honey.”

  “Yeah, champ,” Jeff says, looking uncomfortable as well. “Eat up. You’re probably hungry.”

  “Not hungry! Not hungry!” Turkey is flung.

  “He gets meltdowns sometimes,” Erica explains. “This is a lot for him. He’s not good with transitions.”

  He is tilting out of his booster. “Mommy stays home!”

  “All right, champ,” Jeffrey says, reaching over to him. “Someone’s getting a time-out.”

  “Noooooooo!” he sobs at the injustice of it all as Jeffrey whisks him into the “naughty corner,” which is the bottom step of our stairs, where he sits, quite astonishingly. Arthur appears to feel sorry for the similar-sized creature and wanders over to lick his face, while Jeffrey resumes his spot at the table, spooning some gravy.

  “Tough age,” Peggy says.

  “Yup,” Erica answers, “some prolonged terrible twos. Are you two thinking about kids?”

  “Kids?” I ask with an audible gulp. “We don’t know about that yet.” Though I must say, Nathan isn’t a strong advertisement for the notion. Erica smiles, passing me the gravy boat. A meaty smell wafts up from the lumpy, gelatinous mass, making my stomach lurch. Suddenly I don’t feel very well. My mind is fluttering with images of Sofia’s smile, Andre’s bandaged hand, slice marks on Aubrey’s wrist, and furry demons with a hundred ribs, moving up and down. I wobble in the chair as if I might fall off it.

  Mike is on his feet. “Zoe, are you okay?”

  “Um, yeah. I’m fine.” But I’m not, and I vomit all over the dining room table.

  * * *

  All night I’m in and out of sleep.

  After dinner, I was sent straight to bed to get over my flu thing. I’m not feverish, but I do feel as if I’ve been hit by a truck. Mike assured me he would clean up and that nobody hated me for ruining dinner. Since then I’ve been in bed, suspended in a half-dreaming, half-awake state, a fractured, sickly sleep. I am dreaming of Arthur stealing ornaments off the Scotch Pine (which seems altogether too realistic to bother dreaming about) when the unmistakable sound of my text tone awakens me. The clock says two a.m., though it feels as if I’ve been asleep all night already. I figure it’s either Buffalo Psychiatric Center (which we kindly cover on the weekends) or the prison, so I reach over to take a look through one eye.

  Razors, rope, gas or pills?

  I stare at the message in
dull confusion as my brain wakes up. The number is unfamiliar, a long-distance number. I think you are texting the wrong person, I text back.

  No. It’s a riddle for you.

  I sit up straight in bed now, reading it again. Who is this?

  Razor, rope, gas or pills. Can you guess?

  The text looms on the screen while I decide what to do. My fingers tremble as I type. I’m not playing games. Stop texting me or I will call the police.

  I’m not playing games either. But if you can’t solve it, I’ll give you the answer.

  There is a pause then, and I find myself gripping the phone, waiting.

  Razors, rope, gas or pills?

  How many patients will you kill?

  * * *

  “What? What? Where did it go?” Mike yelps in panicked confusion as I shake him awake.

  “Honey, wake up. Please.” I am close to tears. “I need to show you something.”

  “Sorry,” he mumbles, sleepily. “I was just dreaming…” Then he sees my face and sits up at once, fully awake. “What’s wrong?” He moves toward me, and Arthur shifts in the bed. “What happened?”

  I show him my screen, and he reaches over to take the phone. “Jesus.”

  “Do you think it’s a prisoner?” I hear the desperation in my own voice.

  “I don’t know. It’s weird, though. Did you try to call it?”

  “Not yet. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “Here, let me try.” So he does, putting the speaker on. We both sit there breathlessly, like kids crank calling. No one answers. And there’s no voice mail. “Is it a New York City number?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t recognize it.” I take the phone back. “It seems more than coincidental, though, right? One by hanging, one by pills.” I think further. “Though the heroin doesn’t really fit in for that.”

  “And no one slit their wrists,” he adds. We both sit there, staring at the menacing phone as Arthur starts snoring. “You think Sofia is behind this?” he asks.