А Финн - The Woman in the Window

And then again, dredged from the deep, shredding the air, full-blooded and frenzied: that scream. Coming from number 207. The parlor windows gape, the curtains restless in the breeze. Warm out today, Bina had said. You should open a window.

I stare at the house, my eyes flicking between the kitchen and parlor, swerving up to Ethan’s bedroom, back to the kitchen.

Is he attacking her? Very controlling.

I don’t have their number. I wriggle my iPhone from my pocket, drop it on the floor—“Fuck.”—and dial directory assistance.

“What address?” Sullen. I answer; a moment later an automated voice recites ten digits, offers to repeat them in Spanish. I hang up, punch the number into the phone.

A ring, purring in my ear.

Another ring.

A third.

A fo—

“Hello?”

Ethan. Shaky, quiet. I scan the side of the house, but can’t find him.

“It’s Anna. Across the park.”

A sniffle. “Hi.”

“What’s going on there? I heard a scream.”

“Oh. No—no.” He coughs. “It’s fine.”

“I heard someone scream. Was that your mom?”

“It’s fine,” he repeats. “He just lost his temper.”

“Do you need help?”

A pause. “No.”

Two tones stutter in my ear. He’s hung up.

His house looks at me neutrally.

David—David’s over there today. Or has he returned? I rap on the basement door, call his name. For an instant I fear that a stranger will open the door, explain sleepily that David’s due back in a little while and would you mind if I went back to bed, thanks so much.

Nothing.

Did he hear it? Did he see it? I ring his number.

Four tones, long and unhurried, then a generic recorded greeting: “We’re sorry. The person you have called . . .” A woman’s voice—always a woman. Maybe we sound more apologetic.

I press Cancel. Stroke the phone as though it’s a magic lamp and a genie will spout forth, ready to dispense his wisdom, grant my wishes.

Jane screamed. Twice. Her son denied that anything was wrong. I can’t summon the police; if he wouldn’t come clean to me, he certainly won’t say anything to men in uniform.

My nails carve sickles into my palm.

No. I need to speak to him again—or better still, to her. I jab the Recent button on my screen, press the Russells’ number. It rings just once before it’s picked up.

“Yes?” says Alistair in his pleasant tenor.

I catch my breath.

I look up: There he is, in the kitchen, phone at his ear. A hammer in his other hand. He doesn’t see me.

“This is Anna Fox from number two-thirteen. We met last—”

“Yes, I remember. Hello.”

“Hello,” I say, then wish I hadn’t. “I heard a scream just now, so I wanted to check on—”

Turning his back to me, he places the hammer on the counter—the hammer; was that what alarmed her?—and claps his hand to the nape of his neck, as if he’s comforting himself. “Sorry—you heard a what?” he asks.

I hadn’t expected this. “A scream?” I say. No: Make it authoritative. “A scream. A minute ago.”

“A scream ?” Like it’s a foreign word. Sprezzatura. Schadenfreude. Scream.

“Yes.”

“From where ?”

“From your house.” Turn around. I want to see your face.

“That’s . . . there’s been no scream here, I can promise you that.” I hear him chuckle, watch him lean against the wall.

“But I heard it.” And your son confirmed it, I think, although I won’t tell him that—it might aggravate him, might incense him.

“I think you must have heard something else. Or heard it from somewhere else.”

“No, I distinctly heard it from your house.”

“The only people here are myself and my son. I didn’t scream, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t, either.”

“But I heard —”

“Mrs. Fox, I’m so sorry, but I have to go—I’ve got another call coming in. Everything’s fine here. No scream, I promise you!”

“You—”

“Have a good day. Enjoy the weather.”

I watch him hang up, hear those two tones again. He lifts the hammer from the counter, leaves the room through a far door.

I gawk at my phone in disbelief, as if it might explain things to me.

And just then, as I look back toward the Russell house, I see her on her front stoop. She stands still for a moment, like a meerkat sensing a predator, before descending the steps. Twists her head that way, then this, then that way again; finally she walks west, toward the avenue, the crown of her head a halo in the sunset.

25

He leans in the doorway, shirt dark with sweat, hair matted. An earbud is plugged into one ear.

“What’s that?”

“Did you hear that scream at the Russells’?” I repeat. I heard him return just now, barely thirty minutes after Jane appeared on the stoop. In the meantime my Nikon has veered from window to window at the Russell house, like a dog snouting out foxholes.

“No, I left about a half hour ago,” David says. “Went down to the coffee shop for a sandwich.” He lifts his shirt to his face, mops up the sweat. His stomach is corrugated. “You heard a scream?”

“Two of them. Loud and clear. Around six o’clock?”

He eyes his watch. “I might’ve been there, only I didn’t hear much,” he says, pointing to the earbud; the other swings against his thigh. “Except for Springsteen.”

It’s practically the first personal preference he’s ever expressed, but the timing is off. I steam ahead. “Mr. Russell didn’t say you were there. He said it was just him and his son.”

“Then I’d probably left.”

“I called you.” It sounds like a plea.

He frowns, takes his phone from his pocket, looks at it, frowns deeper, as though the phone has let him down. “Oh. You need something?”

“So you didn’t hear anyone scream.”

“I didn’t hear anyone scream.”

I turn. “You need something?” he says again, but I’m already moving toward the window, camera in hand.

I see him as he sets out. The door opens, and when it closes, there he is. He trips quickly down the steps, turns left, marches along the sidewalk. Toward my house.

When the bell rings a moment later, I’m already waiting by the buzzer. I press it, hear him enter the hall, hear the front door crack shut behind him. I open the hall door to find him standing there in the dark, eyes red and raw, the blood vessels frayed within them.

“I’m sorry,” Ethan says, hovering on the threshold.

“Don’t be. Come in.”

He moves like a kite, feinting first toward the sofa, then to the kitchen. “Do you want something to eat?” I ask him.

“No, I can’t stay.” Shaking his head, tears skittering down his face. Twice this child has set foot in my house, and twice he’s cried.

Of course, I’m accustomed to children in distress: weeping, shouting, pummeling dolls, flaying books. It used to be that Olivia was the only one I could hug. Now I open my arms to Ethan, spread them wide like wings, and he walks into them awkwardly, as though bumping into me.

For an instant, and then for a moment, I’m holding my daughter again—holding her before her first day of school, holding her in the swimming pool on our vacation in Barbados, clutching her amid the silent snowfall. Her heart beating against my own, a beat apart, a continuous drumline, blood surging through us both.

He mutters something indistinct against my shoulder. “What’s that?”

“I said I’m really sorry,” he repeats, prying himself free, skidding his sleeve beneath his nose. “I’m really sorry.”

“It’s fine. Stop saying that. It’s fine.” I brush a lock of hair from my eye, do the same for him. “What’s going on?”