The next time the door across the way opens, it’s the wife’s turn to come out. Veronica. She turns around to lock her door, but I can still picture her face the way it looked an hour ago. I blink and enlarge the mental picture for myself. Its focus improves. I zoom in on every little muscle, every feature, and finally the picture is as clear as if she were standing beside me. A black fire burns in her eyes as they follow Philip across the yard. Is it rage? Or hatred? I open my eyes just as the bottom of her coat flaps and disappears around the corner. She’s gone, but that nagging sensation inside me is still there.
I stand up and stretch, then walk over to the fridge but change my mind and return to the kitchen table. I sit down again and drum my fingers on the tabletop. I need something to do, but I won’t see any new reading or editing gigs until Monday. There’s also obviously a lull in the translation industry, too. I take out my computer and open the document with the text I started, but the letters swim before my eyes and there’s a lump in my stomach.
I take out my phone and weigh it in my hand. What if I sent Peter a text? What if I just laid it out and said exactly what I’m feeling?
Without you I’m just a shell, an empty husk.
No! I toss my phone aside with so much force that it slips over the edge of the table and lands on the floor. The glass cracks, but the phone still works—unlike me. The crack through me runs much deeper, eating its way far below the surface.
I get up again and go out into the living room to sort the books on the shelf, even though it’s the middle of the day. Then I’m so exhausted that I fall asleep and don’t wake up again until many hours later, when my sister calls. It’s obvious that I was asleep and that she woke me up, but I still claim otherwise. I say I’ve been up for ages, that I’m a little hoarse and maybe I’m coming down with a cold.
My sister is quiet for a second. It’s as if she’s gathering her strength to say something important, and I get it into my head that she’s planning to give me some sort of warning or maybe reveal some secret. Like what’s actually up with Walter and his bowling? But then I hear the sound of other people approaching. My sister works in one of those open-plan offices. She clears her throat. In a neutral tone, she says that she bought Papa a birthday card, wrote a greeting, and signed both our names. The card is nothing special, no balloons or hearts or anything like that. If that’s OK with me, then she’ll send it on her way home from work. I say that’s fine.
Once again she speaks hesitantly, lowering her voice.
“Elena, have you eaten anything today?”
Before I have a chance to answer, someone in the background yells to my sister.
“OK, I have a meeting now,” she says quickly. “We’ll talk later.”
I roll onto my side and feel my pulse speed up. She’s coming here on Friday. I invited her. I have three days. My thoughts chase me out of bed, drive me back down to the living room. I stand there in the doorway and look around at the piles of brown moving boxes. The only furniture aside from the bookshelf is a worn sofa. Otherwise the room is a gaping, empty wasteland.
I proceed into the kitchen and subject it to the same thorough scrutiny. Two simple chairs, a rickety table, and a clock. That’s it. Otherwise the walls and windows in here are bare. Not a painting as far as the eye can see, no live plants. Even my sister will think this place looks frightful. I need to show her that I’m making progress, and I have to increase the lived-in look at least slightly before she comes over. A part of me can’t comprehend that I’m thinking these thoughts, dwelling on such trivial, insignificant things. Another part reminds me that it’s my only chance, my only path forward.
A few hours later, when I’m on my way home from the flower shop, my sister calls again. I’d popped into the convenience store, too, only to realize that if I’m going to pull off a proper Friday dinner, I was going to need to do my shopping at a bigger grocery store. But that’ll have to wait for another day. I fumble with the bags and bring my phone to my ear.
“Hello?”
“There’s one other thing, too. One thing I need to…”
She was somewhere quiet now. Maybe she went into a conference room and closed the door so she could make the call in peace this time.
“Although I don’t really know how to… or if this is the best way to…”
I was right. She does want to tell me something, and judging from the tension in her voice, it’s a sensitive subject.
“I’m listening,” I say.
At that moment I think, Here it comes: Walter.
But when my sister starts talking again, she’s not talking about her husband. She’s not even talking about herself. It’s me. She says she’s been thinking and that she feels like she was too hard on me last Friday with all that talk about how I had to get back to writing and how you can live a happy life without kids. Given that I hadn’t asked what she thought, much less for her advice.
“Don’t worry,” I say when she stops. “I know you mean well.”
“But that’s exactly what I do—worry, I mean.”
I clutch the paper bag more tightly, the one containing what the florist assured me were “easy-to-care-for plants.”
“What do you mean?”
I’m almost home now, and the shared yard opens up before me. Leo is sitting outside his house with his head down, reading a book he holds in his lap. He sees me and waves. I wave back as my sister sighs on the other end of the line.
“Like food for example. You’re an adult, Elena, and I have no right to… But you have to understand that I worry that it will happen again.”
There is a faint whistling in my ears.
“That what will happen again?”
Leo has gathered up his things and is walking toward me now.
“Don’t be mad now, but I know,” my sister says.
I force myself to focus on my breathing, force myself to breathe as slowly as I can, in and out, in and out.
“Know what? What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the anorexia you had as a teenager.” She stops for a second and then adds, “Mama told me.”
The whistling in my ears increases in strength, and the last of the strength runs out of my arms. I have to set my bags on the ground. Leo, who has reached me now, points and gestures silently, asking if I want help carrying them. I shake my head, then exert intense effort to find my voice.
“I have to go now,” I tell my sister. “Talk to you later.”
“No, please,” my sister wails, “don’t do that. I didn’t mean to just blurt it out like that, but I’m not very good at… I mean we don’t usually… If you want, I can come over after work. Then we can sit down and talk, just you and me.”
Leo shows that he understands I’m busy and that he’s going to go back over to his place.
“No, wait!” I say.
Leo stops and gives me a questioning look.
“Are you talking to me?” my sister asks.
“Look,” I say. “I’m busy. One of the neighbors just stopped by.”
Then I hang up and put away my phone. I let a second or two go by before I raise my eyes to Leo. He’s not wearing a jacket.
“Don’t you get cold sitting out here wearing just that?”
He shrugs.
“You didn’t forget your key again, did you?”
“I’m the world’s biggest airhead, I know.”
I look down into my bags, at the plants and the pots that are visible, and then I look at Leo’s hands. His fingers are pale, almost blueish. He’s obviously cold. I may have several options right now, but only one of them is the right thing to do.