Lisa Unger: Black Out

“I think Annie, you know?” I say. I have given this some thought, of course. “I decided I’m going to change my name to Annie Ophelia Powers. I’m not that girl anymore. But she’s still a part of who I am.”

She nods her understanding. “You know what, Annie?” she says, giving me a smile. “You seem well. Better than you’ve ever been. More solid, centered.”

“Whole,” I say.

“Yes.”

Marlowe Geary is dead. I shot him and watched as the life drained from him. Finally, I rescued Ophelia. She is safe. She has a home and a family who loves her. I don’t say any of this. There’s no point.

We sit in silence for a while, sipping coffee. In the kitchen I hear the new maid and nanny, a young woman named Brigit drop a glass; it shatters on the tile. She is someone Gray hired when Esperanza quit. She is cool where Esperanza was warm, thin where Esperanza was curvaceous, quiet where Esperanza was exuberant. She’s not bad, just different. I’ve wanted to call Esperanza, but apparently she has gone back to Mexico to care for her dying mother; there is no phone in her home there. She promised Gray to come back after her mother’s passing. I am afraid that she has left because of me. Victory misses her very much, and so do I. But in a way my daughter and I are closer for her absence.

I go in to see if Brigit is okay. She is, just flustered and apologetic. I try to put her at ease and think again how much we miss Esperanza.

When I return, Ella is reading the paper.

“Did you hear what happened to the police detective who was here that night?” she says.

“Ray Harrison?”

“Yeah.”

I don’t know if she knows about how he blackmailed us, and I can’t decide whether I should get into all that with her. I haven’t thought about him in a while. I remember our last encounter outside the pool where I took my diving lessons, how his conversation led me to Vivian, who told me about Marlowe’s body. She claims that she never said anything about Dr. Brown or made any cryptic statements like, “That’s what they told me to say.” She was fooled by him like everybody else, she claims. Needless to say, our relationship has cooled. She is nervous and uncomfortable around me. We keep up appearances for Victory’s sake. Drew has avoided me altogether.

“What happened to him?”

She hands me the paper, and I read the feature about the fallen cop, the hooker, the heroin, the gambling addiction, the mysterious money in his account. Ray Harrison looks beaten, dazed in the mug shot pictured. I notice that the white hair over his ear is gone. Strange. Maybe it’s a trick of the light.

I glance over at Ella, and she is watching me. She wrinkles her brow when our eyes meet.

“Crazy, huh?” she says, and there’s an odd brightness to her gaze, as if she takes some pleasure in the sensational nature of the story.

“Yeah,” I say, folding the paper, closing my eyes, and leaning my head back. I feel the sun on my face. I feel a sudden anxiety, a sense that something is not right about what I’ve read. But I can’t afford to dwell on Ray Harrison right now or worry about his problems. “Crazy.”

I am never alone, I start to realize after I’ve been home another week or so. Either Gray or Ella or Brigit is always with me. I am not even left alone with Victory except when I take her to school in the mornings. It’s not that anyone’s hovering, but someone is always in the house or out with us as we run errands. With what they think of me, I suppose I can’t blame them. I’ll go along with it for a while, but eventually it’s going to start to wear on me. Right now I’m on my best behavior, doing what I must to be home with my family and not locked up in a rubber room somewhere.

“Mommy,” Victory says in the car on the way to school this morning.

“Yeah, Victory?”

“Are you better?” She is looking at me through the rearview mirror. She’s frowning slightly.

“Yes, I am,” I answer. “A lot better.”

I see her smile, then put my eyes back to the road.

Then, “I don’t want to go away with Grandma and Grandpa anymore.” It’s an odd thing to say, and I look back into the mirror to see that her frown has returned.

“Why, baby?”

“I just don’t want to. I want to stay with you and Daddy. You shouldn’t go away, and they shouldn’t take me anywhere.” I can see she has given this some thought. My heart aches a little.

I give her a smile and decide not to press right now. “I’m not going anywhere. And you don’t have to go anywhere you don’t want to. Okay?”

“Okay,” she says, but her smile doesn’t return.

The rest of the ride I am watching her face, wondering if I should urge her to talk more. But by the time I get her to school, she’s back to her old self, bubbly and chirping about show-and-tell today. She has brought Claude and Isabel. I am sure they’ll be a smashing success.

After I drop Victory off, I don’t go straight home. I just can’t face the rest of the day tiptoeing around Brigit, who, by the way, is an even worse cook and housekeeper than I am. I’m starting to suspect that she’s an operative from my husband’s company, hired to keep an eye on me.

I find myself at the Internet café by the beach. I order myself a latte and grab a spot in a booth toward the back, start browsing the Web on one of the laptops. I have thought about trying to find some proof of the things that happened to me. But, it turns out, I don’t really need anyone to believe me. I know what happened. I know I’m not crazy. I know that I faced Marlowe Geary and removed him from the world. I am healed by this knowledge. That should be enough. Whatever Alan Parker and Grief Intervention Services did to cover everything up is not my problem. I have tried to reach my father to talk to him about that night, without luck. I’m starting to worry about him.

My fingers hover over the keyboard. I think about searching for a way to contact Alan Parker, to look for stories of other people who have been involved with Grief Intervention Services, or to try to reach my father again without Gray around. There’s a pay phone over by the bathrooms. But in the end I don’t do any of these things. I have the sense that I’m being watched. Everyone is so pleased with my “progress.” I don’t want to set off any alarms. I need to be home for my daughter.

“They don’t want you to be alone, do they?” I turn to see a young woman sitting at the table behind me. She has a baby who is blissfully asleep in a stroller. The woman’s ash-blond hair is pulled back into a tight ponytail, her face pale to the point of looking almost gray. The dark smudges of fatigue rim her eyes. I don’t recognize her.

“I’m sorry?” I say.

“I’ve been trying to get you alone for days,” she says.

“Do I know you?” I ask.

“No, you don’t know me, Ms. Powers. My name is Sarah Harrison. I’m Ray Harrison’s wife.”

I look at her face and try to decide what she wants. Is this going to be another attempt at blackmail? A desperate woman looking for money? But no, there’s something about her face. Her eyes are wide and earnest. There’s a strength and a presence to her. She’s not the criminal type. She’s scared, looking over at the door and then down at her baby. The baby looks a lot like Ray Harrison; the only way I know she’s a girl is because she’s wrapped in pink. I remember when Victory was that small and fragile. I can’t help myself-I reach in and touch the downy crown of her head. She releases a sigh but doesn’t wake.

“I need to talk to you,” Sarah says.

I turn away from her. If anyone is watching, I want them to think I was just admiring her baby. I look at my computer screen. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Harrison?”