The Woman in the Window - A. J. Finn Page 0,38

like a tent.

Huddled there, I stretch my arm back along the steps, up, up, up, tiptoeing one finger ahead of the other, until I can feel the top step. I peek. There’s the door flung open, the kitchen glowing gold. I reach for it, as though I could snag my fingers in the light, tug it toward me.

She’s dying over there.

I turn my head back to the umbrella. Four squares of black, four lines of white.

Pressing my hand against the rough brick of the steps, I haul myself to my feet, up, up, up.

I hear branches creaking overhead, take tiny sips of cold air. I’d forgotten cold air.

And—one, two, three, four—I begin to walk. I’m unsteady, like a drunk. I am drunk, I remember.

One, two, three, four.

* * *

During the third year of my residency, I met a child who, following surgery for epilepsy, manifested a curious set of behaviors. Prior to her lobectomy, she was by all accounts a happy ten-year-old, albeit one prone to severe epileptic episodes (“epilepisodes,” someone quipped); afterward, she withdrew from her family, ignored her younger brother, shriveled at her parents’ touch.

Initially her teachers suspected abuse, but then someone observed how much friendlier the girl had become toward people she barely knew, people she didn’t know—she would fling her arms around her doctors, take the hands of passersby, chat with saleswomen as though they were old pals. And all the while her loved ones—her former loved ones—shivered in the cold.

We never determined the cause. But we termed the result selective emotional detachment. I wonder where she is now; I wonder what her family is doing.

I think of that little girl, her warmth toward strangers, her affinity for the unknown, as I ford the park, to the rescue of a woman I’ve met twice.

And even as I think it, the umbrella bumps against something, and I stop in my tracks.

It’s a bench.

It’s the bench, the only one in the park, a shabby little wooden rig with curlicue arms and an in-memoriam plaque bolted to the back. I used to watch Ed and Olivia sit here, from my aerie atop the house; he’d idle over a tablet, she’d thumb through a book, and then they’d swap. “Are you enjoying your children’s literature?” I’d ask him later.

“Expelliarmus,” he’d say.

The tip of the umbrella has caught between the planks of the seat. Gently I pry it loose—and then I realize, or rather remember:

The Russell house doesn’t have a door leading to the park. There’s no way to enter except by the street.

I haven’t thought this through.

One. Two. Three. Four.

I’m in the middle of a quarter-acre park, with only nylon and cotton for armor, traveling to the home of a woman who’s been stabbed.

I hear the night growl. I feel it circle my lungs, lick its lips.

I can do this, I think as my knees go slack. Come on: up, up, up. One, two, three, four.

I falter forward—a tiny step, but a step. I watch my feet, the grass springing up around my slippers. I will promote healing and well-being.

Now the night has my heart in its claws. It’s squeezing. I’ll burst. I’m going to burst.

And I will place others’ interests above my own.

Jane, I’m coming. I drag my other foot ahead, my body sinking, sinking. One, two, three, four.

Sirens whine in the distance, like mourners at a wake. Blood-red light floods the bowl of the umbrella. Before I can stop myself, I twist toward the noise.

Wind howls. Headlights blind me.

One-two-three—

Friday, November 5

35

“I guess we should have locked the door,” Ed mumbled after she fled into the hall.

I turned to him. “What were you expecting?”

“I didn’t—”

“What did you think would happen? What did I say would happen?”

Without waiting for an answer, I left the room. Ed’s footsteps followed me, soft on the carpet.

In the lobby, Marie had emerged from behind her desk. “You folks okay?” she asked, frowning.

“No,” I replied, just as Ed said, “Fine.”

Olivia was lodged in an armchair beside the hearth, her face rinsed with tears, filmy in the firelight. Ed and I crouched on either side of her. The flames snapped at my back.

“Livvy,” Ed began.

“No,” she answered, rattling her head back and forth.

He tried again, softer. “Livvy.”

“Fuck you,” she shrieked.

We both recoiled; I nearly edged into the grate. Marie had retreated behind her desk and was doing her best to ignore us folks.

“Where did you hear that word?” I asked.

“Anna,” said Ed.

“It wasn’t from me.”

“That’s not the point.”

He was right. “Pumpkin,” I said, smoothing her hair;