A Ship Made of Paper

Iris will probably answer the phone, and then hand it over to him.As Kate makes her way up the steps, there is a nerve-shattering death ofa maple tree not fifty feet from the house, a noble old tree that seems ac-tually to scream as it falls, as ifits pulp were flesh.Kate hollers in fear—not that high, blood-curdling scream ofthe horror show damsel in distress, but the wavering, angry, monotone cry ofreal fear.She drops her flashlight, it rolls down the staircase, turning the house end over end until the flashlight hits the bottom and goes dark.

Kate is still making noise—a soft, stunned“oh-oh-oh.”And then she gathers herselfand shouts out,“Daniel!”She grips the banister, turns around.She wants to retrieve the flashlight.But no.Why walk back into that darkness?There are candles burning upstairs and the phone is there, too.She turns around again, stops.She remembers she still has not locked the front door, and so once again she turns around.She is turn-ing around and around.And in the midst ofall that turning she realizes that she is wet and clammy and there is a smell ofurine in the air.Fuck-ing tree.Fucking snow.Fucking gang bangers out there staring at her windows.Fucking Daniel, so far out there, so far away from her.

She clutches at her stomach, presses her hand against the wall to stop herselffrom tumbling down the stairs.She sits, feels along the side ofher pants.Just a little dampness, not so bad.Her underwear, however, is soaked.Okay, that settles it.Upstairs, for a change ofclothes.She starts to rise, but then sits again;there’s still the matter ofthat unlocked front door.

She cannot get up because she cannot decide ifit would be better to con-tinue upstairs or hurry downstairs, and the more she thinks, the more un-likely it seems that she will ever be able to make up her mind.She closes her eyes.The darkness within makes the darkness ofthe house seem like an ice cream parlor.She reaches up, grips the banister, pulls herselfup.She sways, and with every bit ofher will she forces a decision.She turns around and heads upstairs, where there are clean clothes and a working phone.

By the time she reaches the top ofthe stairs she hears the urgent knocking at her door.She knows it’s them, the boys, the boys with noth-ing to lose.All she can think to do is pretend she does not hear it.

The bedroom has always been the coldest room in the house.She opens her dresser drawer, her undergarments feel cold and slippery in her hand.Then she finds a pair ofjeans in the closet.She sits on the edge ofthe bed, undressing, dressing again, and through the noise ofthe storm she hears the pounding ofthe boys’fists against the front door.All she can think ofby way ofstrategy is that ifshe ignores them they will eventually go away.

Dressed, dry, but still cold, she waits for the boys to give up.She places a votive candle on the bedspread and then holds her hands above it, warming her palms over the tiny flame.She holds her breath so that the sound ofher respiration won’t interfere with her trying to hear ifthe boys are still trying to get in.She hears nothing but the wind and the tor-tured groaning oftrees, their canopies filled with ice and snow, any one ofthem liable to snap in two.Yet beneath the sounds ofthe storm, she can make out the urgent knocking ofthe boys’fists against her heavy front door.Gun gun gun.And then, suddenly, the knocking stops.

Kate pulls the phone offher bedside table and sits with it on her lap, her hand on the receiver.Ifshe hears footsteps in the house, she will call the police.But she doesn’t hear footsteps, she doesn’t hear anything—all she has is asensethat those boys have found their way into her house.

She cannot sit there wondering.She goes down the stairs to see, and when she is halfway between the first and second floor landings she stops.Fresh snow is swirling in the foyer and still more is blowing in.

As quietly as she can, Kate backs up the stairs, and when she is at the top ofthe landing she turns and walks quickly to her bedroom.There is no lock on the door;she swats a pile offolded laundry offan upholstered chair, drags the chair across the room, and jams it beneath the porcelain door handle.Then she blows out the votive candle and the freestanding candle on the marble-topped dresser and the room slips into darkness.

She sits on the end ofthe bed, folds her hands onto her lap, and breathes as quietly as she can.She feels absolutely and without question that her life hangs now in the balance, that one stupid move, haste, panic, impatience, curiosity, anything but the most profound and disciplined stillness will lead to her death.Her fear—no longer relevant, no longer useful—seems to have been superseded by an exquisite clarity.

The fear remains in abeyance, even as she feels someone coming up the stairs.It is part ofthe house’s idiosyncrasy that a footstep on the fifth stair vibrates along the master-bedroom floor.At night, she could always hear Daniel’s gloomy trudge upstairs, and by day she could hear Ruby coming up to rouse her.That creaky step, and its harmonic convergence with the house’s inner bone structure, is her distant early warning sys-tem;normally, it cues her to feign sleep, to pull the covers up over her chin, maybe place a pillow over her head.But tonight, all she can do is hold her breath.

The footsteps are in the hall, heading in her direction.

She cannot think ofwhat to ask God.Asking for protection is like asking for a pair ofskates.Ifhe doesn’t want you to die, then you’re not going to die.Ifhe does, you’re certainly not going to talk him out ofit at the last second.You don’t pray for your safety, you don’t pray for a home run, you don’t pray that your next book is a Book ofthe Month Club selection.The only plausible prayer is for serenity ofmind, for faith and acceptance, and Kate finds she has these things right now.

The footsteps stop before they reach the bedroom door.She hears another door close.Where did he go?The bathroom?

Silence.She counts it out to herselfto keep from losing her mind, the numbers create a kind ofpathway, bread crumbs in the forest.When she gets to thirty, she hears a voice shouting from the downstairs.It’s the voice ofa young man, someone she’d describe as obviously black.There is a foghorn quality to his voice, something to be heard over constant noise.

“Come on, Kenny, let’s go.”

“Lemme alone,”a voice answers from the bathroom.Kenny.His voice is sharp, high, full ofcomplaint.

“What are you doin’up there?”

“Taking a shit.”

“Come on.Someone’s gonna come in and find us here.”

“I’m not shitting outside.”

Kate leans back and gropes for the telephone in the darkness.She is not just going to sit here like some poor animal in a trap.She picks the receiver up, pressing her thumb onto the earpiece so that the hum ofthe dial tone won’t carry.

She dials911and waits for one ofthe emergency police operators to pickup, onering, tworings, three…

“Hey, Cyril,”another voice is saying downstairs,“there’s a bathroom by the kitchen.”This kid pronounces it“baff- room,”just the way Kate’s father did when he did his imitation ofhis one black patient who always said,“I still wishin’I could go to the baff-room mo’.”That he might use the bathroom in Dr.Ellis’s office was a subject ofjoke- camouflaged anx-iety—“lock da baff-room,”and“git some bleach fo’da baff-room”were typical ofthe remarks Kate’s father made.

Her call to911has yet to be answered.How many rings has it been?

Fifteen?Twenty? Fucking hell, what is wrong with those people?

The husky-voiced boy calls up again.“This place is fucked.It’s darker in here than outside.We’re leaving!”

And not a moment after he says this, the maple tree that stands in front ofthe house, the proud, gnarled, forty-foot tree that as much as any other thing made Kate want to buy this house, suddenly cracks in two from the weight ofthe snow.The crown ofthe tree hits the roof, im-mediately tearing down the gutters;branches, halffrozen, covered in snow, thrust themselves like monstrous arms through the windows on the east side ofthe house.One long branch smashes through the bed-room window;the branches at the end are cold and thin and they brush roughly against Kate’s face.Wind and snow rush in.

Kate falls offthe bed, onto her side, and rolls over on her stomach, covering her face.She uses her elbows and knees to push herselfbeneath the bed.And while she is there—hiding—she hears the boys leaving her house, screaming crazily, halfin terror, halfin excitement.

Daniel stands next to Iris in the guest bedroom, holding a flashlight for her while she makes up the sofa bed.

“You don’t have to do this,”he finally says.“I’m perfectly capable of making a bed.”He nervously continues.“In fact, I used to make beds for a living.In college, or in the summers, actually, two years running I worked in a hotel in Delaware.I was a chambermaid.”

“You were?”

“Or a chamberman, or maybe a chamber pot.I made beds, that’s all I know.”