notebook? Didn’t we talk about it last night? I swear, sometimes I feel like I’m the one going nuts in this house.
She takes off my wet things, towels me down, dresses me in a blue skirt and a blue-and-red striped sweater, talking the whole time.
Now, behave. Just answer the questions. Keep calm. No acting up. This is just an informal visit. Very friendly. There’s no need to worry. No need to bother Fiona or that lawyer she’s got. It’s not that kind of thing, not at all. Just a few questions and off she’ll go.
The world is subdued today. Like I am behind a veil, looking out. The colors pastel and faded, my senses dulled. My vision slightly obscured by the veil. It’s not unpleasant. But it can be dangerous. You think that you are hidden from them, behind your veil, and suddenly you realize that you’ve been visible the whole time. Exposed.
It’s not that you did anything you are ashamed of. Or that you would change what you did. It’s just the thought of what you might have said or done. The breathtaking risk you’ve just taken. Now I am sitting at the kitchen table, facing the strange woman. My jaw feels wired shut. I have no energy to open it. I can barely keep my eyes open. Sleep. Sleep.
I remember turning on the shower. I remember soaping up my arms and my legs. I remember thinking that my nightdress was getting in the way. But I didn’t put it all together. Too slow. Too uncaring.
The woman is asking me questions. I’m finding it hard to pay attention.
Where were you again the week of February sixteen?
Here. I’m always here.
On February fifteen and February sixteen in particular? You were here? You didn’t leave the house?
I exert myself, reach out, and pick up my notebook. I leaf through the pages. February 13. February 14. February 18.
The blond woman interrupts.
We try to document as many of her days as possible. She likes to read over them when she’s feeling a bit down, when she’s having a bad time of it. But I guess we missed that day. Still, if anything out of the ordinary had happened, I would have made a point of writing it down. Her daughter insists upon it.
The brown-haired woman reaches out and takes the book from me. She carefully turns the pages.
I see she wandered from home several times in January.
Yes, she does that occasionally. I watch her, but sometimes she does get away.
Did that happen in mid-February?
No, not in February. Honestly, it’s a very rare occurrence.
She was seen by Helen Tighe, from Twenty-one Fifty-six, letting herself into Amanda O’Toole’s home on February fifteen. Was that one of those rare times?
We’ve been over and over that. If it happened, I didn’t know about it. She wasn’t missing for any extended length of time. Sometimes I do laundry in the basement. Make some soup. If she went over to Amanda’s, she was back before I noticed.
Doesn’t that worry you?
It does, it does. Honestly, I do my best. We’ve had locks installed on all the outside doors, but that upsets her and does more harm than good. It’s best to leave them unlocked and watch her carefully. Usually a neighbor notices. It’s that kind of street. Everyone looks out for everyone else. We always get her back. We had a bracelet made, but she won’t wear it.
What about at night?
Oh, nights are no problem. I’ve been told there are cases where you have to strap them in at night or you wouldn’t know what they’d get up to. Not her. She goes down quietly at nine and doesn’t make a peep until six in the morning. You could set a clock by her.
The brown-haired woman isn’t listening. She is frowning. She holds the book closer, places her index finger in between two of the pages, draws it back, and looks at me.
A page has been removed, she says. And not torn out. Sliced out. With a razor or something like that. She looks at me, moves her chair closer to the blond woman, and speaks more softly. She was a doctor, right? A surgeon?
That’s right.
Does she still have any of her equipment? Her scalpels?
I wouldn’t think so. Don’t those belong to the hospital? I’ve never seen anything like that around here. I would have, too. There isn’t anything about this house I don’t know. I have to keep an eye on things. Otherwise, you don’t know what she’ll do.
The blond woman pauses for a breath.
Last week, she threw all her jewelry in the trash. We only caught it by accident—her daughter found a diamond pendant lying outside in the snow next to the garbage. We dug down and found her wedding ring. Then some family keepsakes—some quite valuable, others just sentimental. We retrieved it all, and at that point we went through everything and I mean everything. Definitely no knives. Her daughter took a couple of trinkets that she wanted home with her—a special necklace that belonged to her mother and her father’s college ring—then locked everything away in the safe-deposit box.
I make a noise. It’s not until both women look at me that I understand it is laughter.
I stand up. I go into the living room. I go to the piano. To the bench. I open it up. It’s full of what looks like
