Caroline Eriksson - The Watcher

“At first I didn’t understand why, but then, well, it was obvious! It was never the intention for me to do any of those things. I don’t need to explore my creativity. I need to finish my degree. I don’t want a hobby—I want a job! I want to do the work I went to school for. There’s nothing wrong with yoga, but if I need to listen to another ‘om’ during work hours, I’ll—”

Veronica glances quickly in my direction. Her eyes have grown foggy, and she laughs, a hard, joyless sound.

“Maybe it’d be best if I didn’t finish that thought.”

She explains that she signed up for a low-residency distance-learning program, a way of getting going on her degree again. It was supposed to start with a weekend seminar with required attendance, but that was the weekend she wasn’t able to get away. Now, she apparently has to wait at least a year for the next seminar to come along.

“The worst thing is that Philip doesn’t understand how much that class meant to me. He can tell I was disappointed, but he thinks he can make it up to me by giving me things, as if I need more earrings or spa visits or surprise parties.”

There’s another ping from my bag. I hesitate, but Veronica is so involved in her account that it would seem impolite to pull out my phone. It’s as if someone pushed a button and now she has to get everything she’s been holding back off her chest, everything that has apparently built up over a number of years. If there’s anyone who can understand what that feels like, it’s me.

“Anyway. So he took me to this spa last weekend, and then I told him that I don’t want any more lavish birthday presents, that what I need from him is something completely different. I really thought I’d gotten through to him, thought he had finally understood, but then I found out that he was planning a surprise party for me here at the cabin. One of our mutual acquaintances accidentally let the cat out of the bag. Philip had apparently asked her to help arrange all the practical details.”

A mutual acquaintance. I picture Philip and the redhead: them disappearing into a building’s front door, leaning over a restaurant table, making plans and chatting about the cabin. A surprise party? How could I have been so wrong?

Veronica has gotten up now and is pacing back and forth in the room.

“He was trying to be nice, he said, when I backed him up against the wall. But I don’t get what he was thinking. I mean, given how badly I’ve been doing lately, how disappointed I’ve been in him… how could he think that the solution was a party? It wasn’t until I said he should scrap the party that he understood how serious this was. Or maybe it was when I said I needed some space to think, that I wanted to come up here on my own for the weekend.”

I empty the juice glass and then pull my hands inside the sleeves of the fleece jacket.

“Are you cold? The radiator should have started warming the place up by now.”

I heave myself forward and sit on the very edge of the sofa.

“If you’re planning to report me to the police for something…”

“Pfff,” she says, reaching up to finger one of her earrings.

I look up at her questioningly.

“I didn’t know if I should call the police or the ambulance. And then I realized who you are, that you’re a neighbor, someone Leo knows. And I thought that… well, maybe we didn’t need to involve the police after all. But all that blood on the deck… well, that would… maybe that would be hard to explain. And you’re totally fine now, right?”

Our eyes meet. If I’m not mistaken, she looks like she’s feeling a little guilty.

“So you… never called the police?”

She shakes her head.

“Leo likes you. True, I’ve been a little distracted lately, but I’ve gleaned that much, at any rate.”

Leo. I screw up my eyes. There’s something I’m looking for, the answer to a question that I’m not really sure how to ask.

“We’ve kind of neglected him a bit, both of us. Philip and I. He’s always done such a good job of looking after himself. It’s easy to forget that he…”

When I look up again, Veronica’s eyes are trained on some invisible point in the distance. Then she blinks and sets down her glass.

“I’m going to deal with this,” she says decisively. “I’ll talk to him.”

I think of the pen marks on Leo’s neck, of his stolen shoes, and of all the other things. I carefully nod in response, say that that sounds good. Then I support myself with my hands and get up off the sofa. We stand facing each other for a few awkward seconds. Then Veronica reaches her hand out to me and I take it. She’s as warm as I am cold.

“You’ll get your clothes back as soon as I’ve washed them.”

She says there’s no hurry, that we’re sure to run into each other again in the future. Otherwise, she knows where I live, she adds with a wry smile.

On the way to my car, I take out my phone. My sister has sent two texts. Great that you’re OK,the first one reads. Let me know if anything comes up. PS: Respond with a NO if you DON’T want me to read your manuscript while you’re gone. There’s not much else to do here.

At first I think she’s kidding, then I remember. Her reminder of how she used to read through my writing. That I once told her she had a flair for the dramatic arts. I hold my breath and bring up her second text.

No protest? I’ll take that as a yes. I’m going to read it now. See you soon.

My wife talks, and I listen. Her voice is calm, but it’s clear from her face what a strain it is to revisit and talk about the events that followed her faked abortion.

The wound became infected and she developed a fever, but her mind was made up. Her former boyfriend would not get away with what he’d done. Even if it was the last thing she did, she would get even. She had settled on a night when her parents were going out to dinner. The fever was raging in her body. Her mother and father had no idea why, but they left her home alone with instructions to rest and drink plenty of fluids. As soon as they walked out the door, she got to work. She took the items she’d gathered out of the closet—rope, blindfold, duct tape, balaclava, knife, and hammer. She put everything into a small backpack and started to dress in dark clothing from head to toe. Pulling the pants on over the throbbing wound on her stomach was so painful that she saw stars, and yet she forced herself to continue.

It wasn’t hard to figure out where her ex-boyfriend would be that night. At home with his new girlfriend, of course. She had been there several times before, snuck around the house and sat hidden behind a big boulder in the nearby wooded area. Sooner or later, he would come out the back where there was a flowerpot full of old cigarette butts. He would stand there for a while, and she could smell the smoke, see the little glowing point that was his cigarette through the dark. She never got any closer. He was always alone at those moments. The new girlfriend apparently didn’t smoke but preferred to wait inside where it was warm, in front of the TV or maybe in the bed.

My wife says that she took her backpack and walked toward the front door. She was so dizzy that she had to support herself against the walls in the front hallway to remain upright. This night, she wasn’t going to settle for watching from afar. This night she wouldn’t watch while her ex disappeared back into the house and then just slink home filled with the same dark despair as when she had left. The plan was to step out of hiding and lure him into the woods, threaten him with the knife if she had to. Once in the cover of the trees and the darkness, she would put duct tape over his mouth and tie him up so he wouldn’t be able to interrupt her or walk away. Then he would hear everything she had to say— everything . He would listen until he comprehended exactly how betrayed, degraded, and vulnerable his infidelity and subsequent ridicule had made her feel. He would beg for forgiveness. If he refused, there was always the hammer.