Familiar Strangers

by Jackie Walsh

  ‘You want to ring the cops?’ he says with a sigh.

  ‘No,’ I say, ‘that’s okay. Maybe you’re right, I must have moved them and forgot about it.’ I give him a push. ‘You go, get ready. And thanks.’

  ‘No problem.’

  After I lock the door behind him I investigate more thoroughly, but there doesn’t seem to be anything missing. It’s not long before I find myself wondering if Jeff was right. Did I move the laundry?

  No, I didn’t. I know I didn’t. Why would I move it to the floor?

  Then I see it. I’m in the bedroom when I notice the photo, face down on the bedside cabinet. Someone was in here. That photo is always standing. My eyes open to it every morning searching out her smile. I place the frame upright and a chill runs down my spine. I’m icy cold. Looking around I see nothing else has been touched, just this photo. Why? Who? And how did they get in? The spare key is out at my dad’s house and I doubt Dad even knows how to find my place.

  There’s Lenny, of course. Lenny the concierge. Lenny the security guy. He’s got a bunch of keys, one for each apartment in the building. Would Lenny have handed over my key? Or could someone have swiped the keys from behind Lenny’s desk in the lobby? Ms. Cannister is always complaining about Lenny falling asleep on the job, says he spends more time counting sheep than counting visitors.

  I’ll ask him on my way out. Now I have to get ready for my shift at Mattie’s.

  * * *

  Heading for the bathroom the apartment feels different, somehow. As if it has betrayed me. Everything looks okay, but the silence is eerie, so I switch on the TV and leave it playing in the background.

  After a quick shower, make-up, clothes and shoes, I’m ready. But just as I’m about to walk out the door, TV remote already in hand, I get distracted by the face on the screen. A woman is missing, apparently. Katie Collins. According to the anchor, she hasn’t been in contact with her family for days and they are all very concerned. Taking a step closer to the screen, I scan the young woman’s features. Blonde hair, pulled tightly into a braid. Blue eyes, gleaming above a slight smile and skin that mustn’t welcome the sun – it’s as pale as my own.

  Katie Collins looks familiar.

  Chapter Three

  Mattie’s is a place of dim lighting and threadbare velvet, pocked wooden stools and sprung sofas, pre-owned air and Zeppelin blasting from the speakers, all of it infused with a tingling anticipation that anything might happen.

  I pass Al and Don who stand by the entrance door every night, each of them with that seen-it-all-before expression nailed to his face. I’ve never seen them dressed other than they are tonight: black leather jackets, iconic band t-shirts and Al in jeans that he somehow, magically, manages to close over his bulging beer belly.

  Mattie’s gets an older crowd, so Al and Don don’t often need to flex their muscles; checking ID is their main job. The clients, which is how Matt insists we refer to them, come to listen to the music. To nod along to bass riffs and guitar solos, gaping in awe at the finger hopping Wally executes on the fender.

  I drop my bag in the changing room and head out to the bar. Mattie’s is renowned for two things. Once a famous baseball player, Mattie broke his neck sliding into home base seven years ago and now runs his business from an ergonomic wheelchair, as seen on Dr Phil. And Aerosmith played here a couple of years back. A couple of decades back, to be precise, long before Matt Henley bought the place, but that didn’t stop him putting a big sign on the wall making sure everyone knows Boston’s Bad Boys once darkened these doors.

  * * *

  The night drags on until Brian, the head barman, tells me I can finish early. The bar is not as busy as usual.

  In the changing room, I strip off the black shirt with Mattie’s logo stitched onto the left breast pocket and slip into a plain white t-shirt. The anxiety is already creeping back, prickling under my skin. What did Mom mean? Who was in my apartment? Passing the storeroom on the way back to the bar I almost trip over a cardboard box outside the door. I peek inside to see if it’s empty. It isn’t. Seven bottles, all gin. After a quick glance around, I take one of the bottles and tuck it into the bottom of my bag. Then I head through to the bar, where Brian asks if I’m having a drink. I think about it, not sure if I should add poison to anxiety, but I tell him I will, just the one.

  ‘Everything okay?’ Brian says as he sets down the vodka and soda.

  ‘Fine, yeah. Do I not look okay?’

  ‘Terrific, honey, as always. I just thought you were a bit quiet tonight.’

  There’s a surprise. I didn’t know Brian paid any attention to me.

  ‘I’m fine, Brian, really. Bit of a rough day is all.’

  ‘I hear that,’ he says, pushing the vodka closer. ‘Get that into you.’

  I do. Then I do it again. And again. Soon my mood is mellowing out, the bar and its bustle fading in the background. Then Stephen Black walks in the door.

  I am so not in the mood for this. With more confidence than a three-year-old drawing a picture, Stephen Black thinks every woman is just dying to sleep with him. Some probably are – not me though. I don’t go for married men. From the far side of the bar I can deal with his advances, laughing, pretending to be flattered. It’s not a good idea to burst your boss’s bubble when you’re a month away from being made permanent. But I don’t know how to deal with him from this side. Maybe he’ll behave like he does in the office. Mr Nice Guy. Showing respect for everyone as he waits to be made partner. With the alcohol swimming through my veins, Mom’s words drilling through my brain. I’m not sure I care.

  ‘Hey, Becca,’ he says, leaning against the counter with a big grin. He introduces the two guys with him but I don’t catch their names. If they’re not drunk they’re well on the way. Stephen orders a round, including me in the order.

  Should I stay or go?

  I stay. Soon I’m even enjoying the attention. The vodka working its magic. Now his hand is on my back, sending a warmth through me. This is good, this is how I want to feel, although I do find myself wondering, which hand is on my back… the one with the wedding ring?

  Don’t do it, Becca. Walk away.

  I know, but…

  But what?

  Don’t I deserve a bit of fun? After the day I’ve had?

  Fun, sure, but this guy’s married.

  Then Stephen leans in and suggests we go someplace else, whispering in my ear, his warm breath starting the party. Ignoring the old Becca, the strong Becca, the one who seems to be losing control more and more, I agree.

  * * *

  Back at my apartment Now That’s What I Call Music 77 plays on the tinny stereo that cost a hundred bucks in a Music Depot flash sale. It came with two free CDs. The only CDs I have. Stephen is spread out over the sofa, watching me pour us both a glass from the bottle of gin. It doesn’t take him long to make his move.

  Within minutes we are both naked on the bed. My head is spinning, my heart is swelling, my body vibrates. Ignoring how wrong it all is, I continue making love, or whatever it’s called when you’re fucking someone else’s husband. But, I tell myself, just don’t get caught and no one will get hurt. It’s that simple. For me, anyway. I don’t have to go home and lie to the love of my life about where I’ve been and what I’ve done. How will Stephen do that? Does he worry he might get caught? I don’t think so. It doesn’t seem to bother him at all. Hot and all as the guy might be, he is cold enough to be able to detach himself from what he is doing. I’m glad he’s not my husband.

  * * *

  A couple of hours pass before Stephen glances at the fancy gold watch on his wrist and shuffles out of the bed. I imagine it’s worth a lot of money, that watch.

  ‘I’ll have to go soon,’ he says, turning and bumping into the photo that he knocks off the nightstand. Watching his lean, naked body bend down to pick it up, I lie there, feeling content and awful at the same time. What did I just do?

  Stephen is holding the photo in his hand, scanning th
e faces peering back at him.

  ‘Who are all these?’

  ‘My family.’ I’m not comfortable with Stephen meeting my family like this. ‘Mom and Dad, and that’s Danny.’ I feel sad when I say ‘Mom’. It doesn’t sound right. Should I say that was my mom?

  In the picture she’s standing by my side, her face wreathed in a smile. Long, dark hair hangs loosely around her face, shiny red lipstick vibrant on her lips. There is happiness in Mom’s smile, real happiness, not the Kodak type. In fact, we all look happier in that captured second than we do now. Photos can do that, make you think life was better years ago, that things were simpler in the past.

  For the people in that photo, they were.

  ‘You don’t look like your mother,’ Stephen observes. He puts the photo back on the nightstand and walks out the door, cool as ice cream on a winter’s day. The bang of the door closing behind him sounds extra loud.

  I lie still on the bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering why his words made me feel afraid. His casual comment surges through me as if I’ve been injected with panic. Why wouldn’t I look like my mother? Bolting upright, I take some deep breaths. Relax, Becca, relax. Then I let my eyes slowly move to the picture on the nightstand, to the mother who looks like me. Does she?

  Chapter Four

  The next day I head for Dad’s with a terrible headache. He likes to have us all around the same table for Sunday lunch, the way we used to before Mom went away. It takes me twenty minutes to get to Dorchester and pull up outside the blue wooden house with the white porch where I grew up. I see Danny and Joanna’s people carrier hogging the driveway, leaving me to park on the street. They bought the big car because the baby is on the way. Always prepared for what life has in store. I hope it stays that way. For Danny’s sake, especially; he’s not good with changes to the script. Everything has to be mapped out and planned to perfection. Not like me, I never know what’s on the next page.

  I finally squeeze into a tight space between two cars. I see Bert in his yard, leaning on a rake, and I wave over to him.

  ‘Hi Bert. How’s Edith?’

  ‘She’s fine. She’d be better for seeing you, though.’

  ‘I’ll be over as soon as lunch is finished.’

  ‘She’ll be happy to hear that.’

  Except Edith won’t hear that. Edith is old, older than Bert, and things are slowly breaking down on her. Her hearing was the first gift to be taken back, almost two years ago now. But she’s in the hands of a good man who carries on like nothing has changed.

  Bert shuffles off and I step up onto the front porch of my family home. Or what used to be a home, when Mom still lived here. Before the big hole appeared at the heart of it. Not a hole you can see. One you can feel.

  * * *

  At first it was all a joke, passing comments no one paid any heed to. ‘Oh, I can’t remember what I came in here for.’ Or, ‘Do I want a cup of tea or did I just have one?’ Then she would laugh and let it go. Until one day the local store rang to say my mother was in the manager’s office because she had forgotten how to get home.

  I remember that moment like it is happening now. The fear that gripped me, tossing me into a place I never want to go back to. My father coming through the kitchen door, whistling, a rope and a hammer in his hand, then seeing my face and dropping the tools, rushing to my side.

  ‘What’s wrong, Becca?’

  We are still getting the answer to that question. It comes in dribs and drabs from week to week, month to month, slowly torturing us, feeding us death through a drip.

  ‘Here she is,’ Joanna says, her voice traveling out through the open window.

  Here she is. Not ‘Hi, Becca’ or ‘How are you, Becca?’ Here she is, implying everyone was discussing why I’m late. Oblivious to my paranoia, my father walks in from the back yard. His face is pale and he is ageing at a rapid pace. There are swollen bags beneath his sad eyes and his hair is now completely grey.

  ‘How’s my favorite daughter?’ he says, giving me a hug before trudging back out to the yard. Through the window I can see him watching Danny, who is fixing something near the shed at the bottom of the yard. The pride never leaves my Dad’s stare as he watches him. I know what he is thinking; my son; big strong Danny, with all his degrees and important job in the tall glass building. Not to mention his beautiful wife and eco friendly home the size of a small hotel that he’s about to garnish with a baby. I imagine all Dad’s friends down the pub are sick of hearing him talking about himself, Nicholas Wall, the mechanic, whose son is making it big in the corporate world. But it keeps Dad happy. He needs something to be happy about. Maybe I’ll make him happy some day.

  Mom was different. She never cared for suits and breakfast meetings. Having us around, healthy and happy was enough for her. She told me. Mom harbored no dreams for me that I didn’t dream for myself. She loved Danny but she super loved me.

  Danny lifts his head. There are times I think he’s growing into my Dad – that same jawline jutting out, same square head. He sees me watching, nods and smiles. If he knew I’d slept with my boss last night, I would not be seeing that smile.

  Rummaging in the kitchen dresser for some hangover relief, I find a packet of Advil and take two out of the pack.

  ‘How’s Nancy?’ Joanna says, her false eyelashes lined up like synchronized swimmers preparing to dive into her eyes.

  ‘Fine, the same as usual,’ I say, filling a glass with water. I don’t want to get into the details of what my mother said, not with Joanna.

  After swallowing the tablets, I unzip my jacket and fling it onto the closest chair. Please let her move on to the next subject, I can’t handle this today, not with this blinding headache and burning guilt.

  ‘Poor Nancy,’ she says, ‘it’s so sad seeing her like that.’ She pauses for a moment, giving me a flicker of hope. But no, here she comes again. ‘Have you ever thought about getting tested for the gene?’ she says just as Danny walks in the door.

  ‘Not really,’ I say.

  ‘It’s just, with your mom having gotten it so young, you should maybe think about it.’

  It kills me to admit it, but Joanna has a point. My mom is one of the youngest ever to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at the Mass General Hospital. Early-onset Familial Alzheimer’s Disease, to be exact, or eFAD, which is different to the more common one that older people get, LOAD. Which means Mom has a fifty-five-year-old heart in what looks like a hundred-and-five-year-old body, with a less than a five-second memory. Nowadays they know a lot more about the gene that carries the possibility of this elongated death sentence.

  Sure, there is a possibility that I may have inherited the gene, so I will think about getting tested. Whenever I have spare money. Or top tier health insurance like Danny. I just don’t want to discuss it now, not with Joanna, and definitely not with Danny.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Danny says, washing his hands. Danny is a lot taller than me, keeps himself fit, and has parted his hair the exact same way for as long as I can remember. His clothes always sport an expensive logo, so they’ll do his boasting for him. And he is always doing something, anything; he just can’t sit down or keep still.

  ‘Nothing much,’ Joanna says, handing him a paper towel. ‘I was just asking Becca if she’d thought about getting tested for the Alzheimer’s gene.’

  ‘And why would she want to do that?’ he says, drying his hands a little too vigorously.

  ‘I just thought…’ Joanna says, turning away.

  ‘Well, don’t. Becca has no interest in getting tested.’ Then, for her sake or mine, or his, I can’t really be sure, he turns to me. ‘Do you, Becca?’

  ‘Does she what?’ says Dad, walking in.

  ‘Get tested,’ Danny says.

  ‘It’s no big deal,’ Joanna says. ‘I only asked Becca if she’d considered getting tested for the eFAD gene.’

  ‘And what did she say?’ Dad says. It’s like I’m not even here.

  ‘That she’s
not sure,’ Joanna says, turning to look at me.

  ‘You’re not sure?’ Dad says.

  I stare back blankly, and shrug, hoping it will quieten them. But no, in jumps Danny with my answer all prepared for me.

  ‘Becca won’t be getting tested for any gene,’ he says. ‘Why the hell would she want to know if that nightmare was waiting for her?’ He puts an arm around Joanna, pulling her close and wrapping his hands around the baby bump. ‘Maybe when she has kids, okay, maybe then she’ll change her mind and get tested.’

  Well fuck you, Danny. Why do you care if I get tested or not? You got tested and didn’t ask anyone’s opinion or permission.

  Grabbing my jacket, I stomp for the door, saying, ‘You know what? Maybe I’ll do whatever I want.’

  The kitchen door makes a bigger bang than I meant it to as I storm out, but I don’t care if the house falls down. I’m sick of Danny trying to run my life, judging me and telling me how to do everything better.

  A brown paper bag on the hall table catches my eye. Opening it, I inhale the warm smell of freshly baked muffins. Cinnamon, blueberries, warm sugar, a bouquet of calories. Joanna must have baked them for my father. Taking the bag with me, I slam the front door closed.

  Chapter Five

  A soft breeze plays on my face when I step outside. Tall trees line both sides of the street; a palette of fall colors. I take a few deep breaths to calm myself, then cross the street to Bert and Edith’s.

  From nowhere Stephen Black jumps into my mind. I just slept with my boss. Shit, what am I going to do? There’s no way I can face him tomorrow. Maybe I’ll ring in sick, or just not show up, or move job. Or move city.