А Финн - The Woman in the Window

“I’ve been patient,” he repeats. “I’ve put up with a lot.” He sniffs, selects a tumbler, rolls it between his palms. “We all have, but especially me.” Now I can see him more clearly; his jacket is zippered to the collar, and he’s wearing dark gloves. My throat tightens.

Still I don’t respond. Instead I move to the light switch, reach for it.

Glass explodes inches from my outstretched hand. I jump back. “Keep the fucking lights off,” he barks.

I stand still, my fingers wrapped around the doorframe.

“Someone should’ve warned us about you.” He’s shaking his head, laughing.

I swallow. His laugh gutters, dies.

“You gave my son the key to your apartment.” He holds it up. “I’m returning it.” The key chinks as he drops it on the island. “Even if you weren’t out of your . . . goddamn mind, I wouldn’t want him spending time with a grown woman.”

“I’ll call the police,” I whisper.

He snorts. “Go ahead. Here’s your phone.” He picks it up off the counter, tosses it in his hand, once, twice.

Yes—I left it in the kitchen. And for an instant I wait for him to dash it to the floor, to hurl it against the wall; but instead he sets it back down beside the key. “The police think you’re a joke,” he says, taking a step toward me. I raise the box cutter.

“Oh!” He’s grinning. “ Oh! What do you want to do with that ?” Again he steps forward.

This time so do I.

“Get out of my house,” I tell him. My arm wobbles; my hand is shaking. The blade gleams in the light, a little slice of silver.

He’s stopped moving, stopped breathing.

“Who was that woman?” I ask.

And suddenly his hand lunges for my throat, seizes it. Drives me backward, so that I thud against the wall, my head cracking hard. I cry out. His fingers press into my skin.

“You’re delusional.” His breath, hot with liquor, flames against my face, stings my eyes. “Stay away from my son. Stay away from my wife.”

I’m gagging, rasping. With one hand I claw at his fingers, rake my nails across his wrist.

With the other I swing the blade toward his side.

But my aim sails wide, and the box cutter clatters to the floor. He steps on it, squeezes my throat. I croak.

“Stay the fuck away from all of us,” he breathes.

A moment passes.

Another.

My vision runs. Tears are leaking down my cheeks.

I’m losing conscious—

He releases my neck. I slide to the floor, gasping.

Now he towers above me. He drags his foot back sharply, sends the box cutter skidding into a corner.

“Remember this,” he says, panting, his voice ragged. I can’t look up at him.

But I hear him say one more word, small, breakably soft: “Please.”

Silence. I watch his booted feet turn, step away.

As he passes the island, he sweeps his arm across it. A wave of glass crashes to the floor, splintering, smashing. I try to scream. My throat whistles.

He walks to the hall door, rips it open. I hear the front door unlatch, slam shut.

I hold myself, one hand touching my neck, the other clutching my body. I’m sobbing.

And when Punch limps through the doorway and gingerly licks my hand, I only sob harder.

Sunday, November 14

89

I inspect my throat in the bathroom mirror. Five bruises, jewel-blue, a dark clasp around my neck.

I glance down at Punch, curled on the tile floor, nursing his lame paw. What a pair.

I won’t report last night to the police. Won’t and can’t. There’s proof, of course, actual fingerprints on my skin, but they’ll want to know why Alistair was here in the first place, and the truth is . . . well. I invited a teenager whose family I stalked and harassed to hang out in my basement. You know, as a replacement for my dead child and my dead husband. It wouldn’t look good.

“Wouldn’t look good,” I say, testing my voice. It sounds weak, withered.

I leave the bathroom and descend the stairs. Deep in the pocket of my robe, my phone bumps against my thigh.

I sweep up the glass, the broken bodies of bottles and goblets; pluck splinters and slivers of the stuff from the floor, dump them into a trash bag. Try not to think about him seizing me, squeezing me. Standing over me. Stalking through the bright ruins underfoot.

Beneath my slippers, the white birch sparkles like a beach.

At the kitchen table I fiddle with the box cutter, listen to the snick of the blade as it glides out and in.

I look across the park. The Russell house looks back at me, its windows vacant. I wonder where they are. I wonder where he is.

I should have aimed better. Should have swung harder. I imagine the razor slicing through his jacket, ripping his skin.

And then you would have had a wounded man in your house.

I set the box cutter down and bring a mug to my lips. There’s no tea in the cupboard—Ed never cared for it, and I preferred drinking other things—so I sip warm water spiked with salt. It burns my throat. I wince.

I look across the park again. Then I get up, draw the blinds tight across the window.

Last night seems like a fever dream, a curl of smoke. The movie screen on my ceiling. The bright cry of glass. The void of the closet. The coiling staircase. And him, standing there, calling for me, waiting for me.

I touch my throat. Don’t tell me that it was a dream, that he never came here . Where—yes: Gaslight again.

Because it was no dream. ( This is no dream! This is really happening! —Mia Farrow, Rosemary’s Baby .) My home was invaded. My property was destroyed. I was threatened. I was assaulted. And I can’t do anything about it.

I can’t do anything about anything . Now I know Alistair to be violent; now I know what he’s capable of. But he’s right: The police won’t listen. Dr. Fielding thinks I’m delusional. I told Bina, promised her, that I’d moved on. Ethan is out of reach. Wesley is gone. There’s no one.

“Guess who?”

Her this time, faint but clear.

No. I shake my head.

Who was that woman? I’d asked Alistair.

If she existed.

I don’t know. I’ll never know.

90

I spend the rest of the morning in bed, then the afternoon, trying not to cry, trying not to think—about last night, about today, about tomorrow, about Jane.

Beyond the window, clouds are brewing, their bellies low and dark. I tap the weather app on my phone. Thunderstorms later tonight.

A somber dusk falls. I draw the curtains and unfold my laptop, place it beside me; it warms the sheets as I stream Charade .

“What do I have to do to satisfy you?” demands Cary Grant. “Become the next victim?”

I shudder.

By the time the films ends I’m half-asleep. The exit music swells; I flap a hand at the laptop, bat it shut.

Sometime later I awake to the buzzing of my phone.

Emergency Alert

Flood warning this area till 3:00 a.m. EDT. Avoid flood areas. Check local media.—NWS

Vigilant, that National Weather Service. I do plan to avoid flood areas. I unstopper a yawn, haul myself out of bed, shuffle to the curtains.

Darkness outside. No rain yet, but the sky has sunk, clouds dropped lower; the sycamore branches are stirring. I can hear the wind. I wrap one arm around myself.

Across the park, a light sparks in the Russells’ kitchen: him, crossing to the refrigerator. He opens it, removes a bottle—beer, I think. I wonder if he’s getting drunk again.

My fingers idle at my throat. My bruises ache.

I slide the curtain shut and return to bed. Clear the message from my phone, check the time: 9:29 p.m. I could watch another film. I could get a drink.