Forget You Know Me

by Jessica Strawser

  Liza jumped, so sudden and startling was the motion. There in the background, across the stretch of white ceramic tile sprawling behind the couch, gaped an ominous rectangle of darkness. Had a gust of wind blown open the unlatched door? Perhaps one of those feral cats Molly was prone to feeding had come begging and jarred it open? Her mind was busying itself to put the pieces of the picture back into place when a tall, broad-shouldered figure stepped through.

  He was dressed head to toe in black, a ski mask tight over his face.

  Liza’s tongue recoiled into her throat with a gasp. Her lungs shuddered mid-breath, terror shooting lightning-quick warning signals from one muscle to the next until she was under its siege, unable to move.

  He shut the door behind him.

  Without a glance in her direction, he began to make his way slowly around the kitchenette, his eyes on the hallway through which her friend had just disappeared to go check on the kids.

  Oh, God. The kids.

  She understood all at once what people meant when they said they were too scared to scream, as everything within her constricted—her veins, her windpipe, her courage. The black-clad figure did not hesitate, did not take stock of his surroundings or stop to get his bearings. He merely headed for that hallway, and Liza realized then that she could not afford to stay frozen. She had to act now. She had to act as if she were there, in the room.

  Because in a way, she was.

  “Hey!” she yelled.

  His head whipped around as he halted, mid-step. The just-visible circles of his eyes fixed themselves on the computer.

  “Leave,” she commanded, her voice cracking, shaking, forsaking her. He moved brusquely toward the screen, and Liza’s eyes flicked down to her lap, where she’d rested her phone. She clutched the smooth rectangle in her fist and thrust it toward the webcam.

  “I’m calling the police!” She was already crying, willing him to change course, to back out, to slink away. As he stepped closer to the camera, his head disappeared from the frame, then his torso, and in an instant she was staring at a black pant leg that came to a stop right before her. She dove forward and seized her laptop in both of her trembling hands, lifting it to her face, skimming the hardware for the dots marking the location of the microphone.

  “Molly!” she screamed into the machine. “Molly! There’s a man! He’s—”

  A swift diagonal of darkness sliced down the screen as an unseen hand slapped Molly’s laptop closed.

  The connection went dead.

  2

  “Mom! Mom! Mom!”

  Molly put her hand on her hip to steady her back as she conquered the last of the stairs. The pain was relatively mild compared to some days, but still enough of a nuisance to slow her methodical, carefully aligned climb and to remind her she was overdue at the chiropractor—a visit she’d been putting off intentionally, in hopes of convincing herself she could do without.

  “Coming!” she called back, echoing Nori’s cadence. “Come! Ing!”

  Even when its touch was lightest, Molly hated the pain. Hated how it made her feel decades older than the other moms running after three-and five-year-olds. Hated the exhaustion from not sleeping undisturbed in—well, it must be years. Hated the way Daniel looked at her when she capitulated, bowing out or asking him to take over, as if she were being difficult on purpose, as if she didn’t hate it even more than he did.

  Rotten luck, her doctors claimed. The stubborn slipped disk was the frothy crest in a wave of things that threatened to give out on her, one after the other, so many that she could hardly blame people when they seemed to suspect she was pretending, or exaggerating, or a head case: Debilitating migraines that began during her first pregnancy. Gestational carpal tunnel that accompanied her second, so bad she could scarcely hold Nori in those first months without the support of a pillow or armchair. Months-long bouts of jaw-popping TMJ syndrome, carrying with its facial pain waves of tinnitus—incessant ear ringing, unpredictable dizziness. Early arthritis in her knees, which seemed to belong to a much older woman and had developed the ability to predict rain. And still this disk in her evidently flimsy spine, which never found its way back into place for long.

  It was all real, of course: all diagnosed, confirmed via various scans. Though she’d never admit aloud there did seem to be a correlation between the severity of her discomfort and her mood some days.

  Like today. As she beelined down the hall toward Nori’s dark doorway, she was already regretting the phone call. Every awkward pause was a reminder of what she’d lost, what she didn’t know how to get back.

  And not just in her friendship with Liza.

  “Here I am!” She stepped over the baby gate into Nori’s room as her young daughter let out a squeamish sort of squeal loud enough, Molly feared, to wake Grant. A halfhearted pat back to bed never sufficed. Molly would have to appease her completely if she didn’t want this return trip to be the first of many.

  How long would Liza wait? Molly had grown impatient with other people’s impatience, but hadn’t yet quite figured out how to let go of the guilt it so readily inspired.

  “Mom! It’s an alligator!”

  “It’s not a—” Molly stopped short as her eyes reached the ceiling. The shadow encroaching from the corner did in fact look exactly like an alligator.

  “I can fix that,” she assured her daughter, and made a show of gathering the curtains and tucking them into the blinds. Above her, the alligator was now a narrow triangle. The best she could do, with the night-light at this angle. “See?” she said hopefully. “Better.”

  Nori looked at her with evident skepticism. “I want to sleep on the floor,” she said, and without awaiting a response hopped out of her toddler bed, trailing her pillow. “Help me with these animals, Mom,” she ordered.

  Molly didn’t know what unsettled her more: her daughter’s recent dropping in casual conversation of the -my from her name, which sounded so teenage in combination with Nori’s bossy toddler tone, or the image of her sleeping like a puppy, curled at the foot of the gate in her doorway, as she inexplicably had every night this week.

  “But the floor is so much less comfortable than your bed.”

  “No it isn’t.” Nori pointed impatiently at the mound of stuffed animals on her mattress, and Molly heaved a sigh of defeat and started volleying them onto the carpet where Nori was arranging her pillow with a satisfied smile.

  “What are you doing downstairs?” Nori asked, sounding almost suspicious. Molly had always been rattled by Nori’s uncanny ability to tap her emotional state, even when she’d felt sure she hadn’t offered a clue.

  “Talking to your aunt Liza.”

  “Who’s Aunt Liza?”

  Molly cringed. She could hardly believe it had come to this point, where the kids scarcely remembered Liza’s last visit. She’d assumed they’d always be a regular part of each other’s lives, raiding each other’s refrigerators without asking, meeting for head-clearing walks after work, bringing each other lattes just because. Now they were—what? How long could you hinge a relationship on a history of what had been?

  And whatever the expiration date was for a neglected friendship, could sheer will extend the “best if used by” stamp on a marriage?

  She sank to her knees next to her daughter and started arranging the plush toys around her, tucking a blanket over the whole soft mound. “Liza has been my best friend since I was a kid.”

  “I had best friends when I was a kid, too,” Nori said, nodding.

  Molly smiled. “You’re still a kid, pumpkin.”

  “I’m three now,” she said defiantly.

  “Exactly.”

  “Is Grant a kid?”

  “One of the best. Like you.”

  “Is Aunt Liza a kid?”

  “No, but I knew her when she was one.”

  Nori cocked her head, considering this. “Is she here?”

  “Nope, I’m talking to her on the computer. Like we do with Granny and Gramps.”
<
br />   “Is she at Granny and Gramps’ house?”

  “No. She’s even further away.”

  “Do you miss her?”

  Something tugged at Molly’s heart. Even when she was talking to Liza, she missed her.

  “Time for bed, little alligator wrestler. Dream of something sweet.”

  “Like Daddy coming home?”

  “Exactly like that.”

  She pulled her daughter into her arms and was glad of the darkness as a swell of emotion overcame her. It wasn’t so long ago that her own sweetest dreams had revolved around Daniel. The introduction into their marriage of two children in close succession and years of chronic pain had taken a toll, not bit by bit, the way she might have recognized and stopped, but in a sneak attack, when one day she’d awoken to find a wall of resentment constructed between them. The mortar seemed to have set overnight, and she hadn’t the first clue as to how to go about breaking it down.

  “Will you sing me a song?”

  “Aunt Liza is waiting, baby.” She shouldn’t have left her on hold. One of the most striking changes that had accompanied motherhood was the degree to which she was constantly underestimating things—how long they would take, how simple they would be.

  What effect they would have.

  Nori ignored her and launched into “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” keeping the meter slow and deliberate to give her mother a chance to catch up. After the first verse, Molly joined in—at least it was a short one. She’d learned the hard way that arguing with Nori would end up taking longer than just singing the damn song.

  She couldn’t fault her daughter for her strong will because Molly had asked for it, literally. In high school, Liza had gifted her a book of Eleanor Roosevelt quotes when they were both on a feminist kick that, looking back, should have been not some foray into progressive thinking but their regular state of mind. (How many times had they reinvented themselves to suit whatever silly teenage boy had caught their eye?) Its pages were worn now from aimless turning in search of inspiration, sticky notes flagging gems such as No one can make you feel inferior without your consent, and Molly had named her daughter for that gumption, choosing a less common nickname for Eleanor to set her apart from all the Ellies and Ellas on the daycare roster.

  I have spent years of my life in opposition and I rather like the role, Ms. Roosevelt had famously said. Nori seemed to have gotten the message along with the name, and three years in, Molly was torn between admiring her daughter’s conviction and feeling utterly defeated by it.

  “Bedtime,” she said firmly when the last notes of the song had been sung for the third time. “You need rest so you can grow.”

  That, Nori rarely argued with. Stubborn though she might be, at heart she was a classic little sister: forever trying to catch up with Grant.

  As Molly made her way down the stairs, the sheer-curtained windows at the bottom began to flash: a blur of blue light, a flicker of white, a glow of red. She was squinting at the pattern, taking it in, when the pounding came, so hard the door shook in the frame. “Mrs. Perkins?” came the muffled bark of a masculine voice, and she hurried to pull the curtain aside. Two uniformed officers peered back at her, their cruisers alert at the curb.

  She pulled back and closed her eyes, a parched, sandy lump catching in her throat. When she opened them, the room around her swirled. Her shaking hand reached for the knob, hot tears already falling down her cheeks, as if they’d known all along.

  Never coming back, Grant’s voice echoed in her ears, hysterical and sobbing as he’d been that morning, as she suddenly was now.

  “Is it Daniel?” she choked out before they could speak, and they looked past her, into the house, hands on their holsters.

  Never coming back, never.

  “We got a call,” one officer said, looking at her expectantly. “A report of an intruder.”

  The wave of relief that came with the words was already breaking with dread.

  3

  Liza was out of her mind.

  Over and over, she rang Molly’s phone.

  Over and over, it went to voicemail.

  Acquiescing to her tearful begging, the gruff woman on the other end of the Cincinnati police line had promised Liza a call back from someone, preferably Molly but if necessary the dispatcher herself, after they’d checked things out, and yet Liza had scarcely brought herself to put her phone down since—thus dooming her hyped brain to another level of second-guessing. What if they’d tried to ring her back and her incessant dialing stuck them with the busy signal?

  Still, nearly an hour in, she couldn’t stop herself from placing the call again and again. It was the only thing within her power to do. Her bumbling alert to the confused dispatcher might have saved her friend from—what? Or it might have been futile. Hearing Molly’s voice would be the only thing that could reassure her that everything was okay. That everyone was okay.

  She set the phone next to her on the futon, where she’d returned from pacing the room, and dropped her head into her shaking hands, beginning again to cry. In her panic, she’d downed the rest of her wine too fast, and her misguided effort to squelch her nerves was now churning in her stomach, much the way an ill-considered choice nagged at a guilty conscience—as if she were inevitably going to pay for this later.

  What a luxury it had been to be merely annoyed with Molly going into tonight’s call. And what shortsighted annoyance, at that. All friendships went through out-of-sync patches. What if they never had a chance at another girls’ night—long distance or otherwise—and Liza had squandered half of this one swallowing bitterness about … what? That her friend, bogged down by the responsibilities of wifehood and parenthood, was more of an adult than she was?

  Her phone chimed loudly with a text—she’d cranked the volume as high as it would go, as if there were any danger of missing a call while staring rabidly at the thing—and she fumbled with the log-in screen. Relief flooded her at the sight of Molly’s name even as the anxious air thickening the room tightened its grasp around her. She tapped the icon.

  Police just left. House was clear. Not sure what you saw … maybe camera/tech glitch? Scared that living bejesus back out of me tho.

  A technical glitch? She must be joking. Liza called Molly again, but again it went to voicemail. No sooner had she hung up than another text pinged.

  Sorry our girls’ night didn’t pan out. Really beat. Rain check soon, K?

  Didn’t pan out? Understatement much? She typed back furiously.

  Need to talk—can’t wait. Call me.

  The response was immediate.

  Sorry, kids upset from all the excitement. Maybe tomorrow.

  Maybe? Maybe? Then, on the heels of that one, another, just as she was typing: They’re not the only ones.…

  Off to bed. Night.

  A deeply troubled feeling took up where the panic had been. Of course the kids would be upset—officers in the house, their father away—but how could Molly not want to talk to her, even for a minute, about what she’d seen? To ask for details, to share a what the actual fuck moment, to acknowledge that Liza had been frantic for over an hour? A text message was hardly a substitute. There had to be something going on here. Something not good.

  How could Molly bear to even stay in the house, much less go to bed?

  The phone rang, and Liza’s heart lifted for the split second it took to register the unfamiliar number, then hung in a perilous balance.

  “Hello?”

  “Cincinnati Police, returning a call about a disturbance?”

  It was the dispatcher from earlier. “Yes. What in the world?”

  “No signs of forced entry, or of an intruder. The homeowner seemed baffled.”

  Liza’s mind raced. “But the laptop—it was shut on the coffee table, as I described it, right?”

  “Homeowner said she was unsure whether she’d shut it herself before heading upstairs.”

  Why would Molly say that? She knew damn well she’d left Liza
on hold.

  “She did not shut it. A man in a mask did.” Liza was incredulous. “Please. Are you sure she’s okay? Something isn’t right.” Did they not believe her? It seemed ludicrous that she’d need proof to back up her story. “Maybe the video chat host keeps a record of calls?”

  “Even if they did, we don’t have real grounds to request it. Aside from your account, there’s no evidence of a crime. But we’re keeping a cruiser outside through the night as a precaution. If there’s no doubt about what you saw, chances are he got spooked by being caught on camera and ran. We weren’t secretive about pulling up, so I’m sure he won’t be back.”

  “But—”

  “That’s all I can tell you. You’ll need to talk to your friend.”

  The call disconnected, and Liza stared at the silent phone, weighing her options. If she were in Cincinnati, she’d go straight over—she’d already be there—but what more could she do from Chicago? What if Molly was in some hidden danger, right now? What if the intruder had threatened her to find a way to get rid of the authorities and Molly had succeeded? What if he was still there, inside the house, having escaped detection? What good would a cruiser outside be then?

  She should call Daniel, maybe. But surely Molly would have already done that. Liza scrolled through her phone contacts to the Ds and found that his number wasn’t there. When she’d upgraded her phone last year, only some of her address book transferred, and she’d only made a point of re-adding the numbers she actually called. She tried to remember if Molly had said where he’d gone—the name of a city, a hotel—but was pretty sure she hadn’t. What good would it do to track him down, anyway? What she needed was someone in town.

  Ignoring the low-battery warning—her phone was evidently as ill equipped as she was for marathon panic sessions—she scrolled to a different name.

  “Liza?”