Tarryn Fisher - Mud Vein

I don’t want to think about it. “I’ll make dinner tonight,” I say.

I look out the window as I peel potatoes over the sink. And then I look down at the peelings, all piled up and gross looking. We should eat those. We will probably be starving soon, wishing we had a sliver of potato skin. I scoop up shreds and hold them in my palm, not sure what to do with them. I counted the potatoes before I chose four of the smallest ones out of the fifty-pound bag. Seventy potatoes. How long could we stretch that? And the flour, and rice and oatmeal? It seemed like a lot, but we had no idea how long we’d be imprisoned here. Imprisoned. Here.

I eat the skins. At least they won’t go to waste that way.

God. I am grimacing and gagging on my potato skin when I drop the potato I’m holding into the sink and press the heel of my hand to my forehead. I have to focus. Stay positive. I can’t let myself sink into that dark place. My therapist tried to teach me techniques to cope with emotional overload. Why hadn’t I listened? I remember something about a garden … walking through it and touching flowers. Was that what she’d said? I try to picture the garden now, but all I see are the shadows that the trees make and the possibility that someone is hiding behind a hedge. I am so fucked up.

“Need help?”

I look over my shoulder and see Isaac. I’d sent him upstairs to take a nap. He looks rested. Surgeons are used to the lack of sleep. He’s taken a shower and his hair is still wet.

“Sure.” I point to the remaining potato and he picks up a knife.

“Feels like old times,” I half smile. “Except I’m not catatonic and you don’t have that perpetually worried look on your face.”

“Don’t I? This situation is kind of dire.”

I put my knife down. “No, actually. You look calm. Why is that?”

“Acceptance. Embrace the suck.”

“Really?”

I feel his smile. Across the two feet of air between us and a sink speckled with new potato skins. For a minute my chest constricts, then the peeling is done and he moves away, taking his soap smell with him.

I have a need to know where a person is in a room at all times. I hear him in the fridge, he crosses the room, sits down at the table. By the noises he’s making I can tell that he has two glasses and a bottle of something. I wash my hands and turn away from the sink.

He is sitting at the table with a bottle of whiskey in his hands.

My mouth drops open. “Where did you find that?”

He grins. “Back of the pantry behind a container of croutons.”

“I hate croutons.”

He nods like I’ve said something profound.

We take our first shot as the meat is simmering in the skillet. I think it’s deer. Isaac says it’s cow. It really doesn’t matter since this sort of situation steals most of your appetite. We don’t really taste anything—deer or cow.

We both pretend that the drinking is fun instead of a necessity to cope. We click glasses and avoid eye contact. It feels like a game; click your glass, shoot whiskey, stare at the wall with a stiff smile. We eat our meal in near silence, faces hanging like limp sunflowers over our plates. So much for fun. We are coping willy-nilly. Tonight it’s with whiskey. Tomorrow it might be with sleep.

When we are finished, Isaac clears the table and washes our plates. I stay where I am, stretching my arm across the wood and resting my head on the table to watch him. My head is spinning from the whiskey and my eyes are watering. Not watering. Crying. You’re not crying, Senna. You don’t know how.

“Senna?” Isaac dries his hands on a dishtowel and straddles the bench to face me. “You’re leaking fluid otherwise known as tears. Are you aware of this?”

I sniff pathetically. “I just hate croutons so much…”

He clears his throat and squashes a smile.

“As your doctor I’d advise you to sit up.”

I sniff and straighten myself until I am in a sort of upright slump.

We are both straddling the bench, now, facing each other. Isaac reaches out both thumbs and uses them to clear my cheeks of tears. He stops when he is cupping my face between his hands.

“It hurts me when you cry.” His voice is so earnest, so open. I can’t speak like this. Everything I say sounds sterile and robotic.

I try to look away, but he holds my face so that I can’t move. I don’t like being this close to him. He starts seeping into my pores. It tingles.

“I’m crying, but I don’t feel anything,” I assure him.

He pulls his lips into a tight line and nods.

“Yes, I know. That’s what hurts me the most.”

After the deal with the F. Cayley print, I take inventory of everything in the house. We could be missing something. I wish I had a pen, some paper, but our single Bic ran out of ink a long time ago… so I have to use my good ol’ memory for this one.

There are sixty-three books scattered throughout the house. I’ve picked up each one, flipped through the pages, touched the numbers at the top right corners. I started reading two of them—both classics that I’ve already read—but I can’t get my mind to focus. I have twenty-three light, colorful sweaters, six pairs of jeans, six pairs of sweatpants, twelve pairs of socks, eighteen shirts, twelve pairs of yoga pants. One pair of rain boots—in Isaac’s size. There are six additional pieces of artwork on the walls, other than the F. Cayley; each of the others is by the Ukranian illusionist, Oleg Shuplyak. In the living room is “Sparrows” one of his milder pieces. But scattered across the rest of the house are the blurred faces of famous historical figures, blended almost indecipherably with landscapes. The one in the attic room disturbs me the most. I’ve tried to pry it from the wall with a butter knife, but it’s cemented so firmly I can’t get it to budge. It depicts a hooded man, his outstretched arms wielding two scythes. His mouth gapes and his eyes are two dark, empty holes. At first all you see is the eerie emptiness—the impending violence. Then your eyes adjust and the skull comes into view: the dark sockets of eyes between the scythes, the teeth, which seconds ago were simply a pattern on a garment. My kidnapper hung death in my bedroom. The sentiment makes me sick. The rest of the prints scattered throughout the house include: Hitler and the dragon, Freud and the lake, Darwin under the bridge with the mysterious cloaked figure. My least favorite is “Winter” in which a man is riding a yak over a snow-covered village while two eyes peer coldly at me. That one feels like a message.

When I have counted everything in my closet and Isaac’s, I start counting things in the kitchen. I note the colors of the furniture and the walls. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I need to do something with my brain. When I run out of things to count, I talk to Isaac. He makes us coffee like he used to, and we sit at the table.

“Why did you want to fly away on your red bike?”

He raises his eyebrows. He’s not used to questions from me.

“I don’t know anything about you,” I say.

“You never seemed to want to.”

That stings. It’s not entirely untrue. I have that whole stay the hell away from me thing going on.

“I didn’t.”

I count the kitchen cabinets. I forgot to do that.

“Why not?” He spins his coffee cup in a circle, and lifts it to his mouth. Before he can take a sip he sets it down again.

I have to take a moment to think about that one.

“It’s just who I am.”

“Because you choose to be?”

“This conversation was supposed to be about you.”

He finally takes a sip of his coffee. Then he pushes his mug across the table to me. I’ve already finished mine. It’s a peace offering.