The Watcher

22

Evening turns to night, and I don’t even attempt to go to bed. There’s no point. I still won’t be able to fall asleep. The energy surges around inside me, searching in vain for some release. I move through the house, finally pausing in the doorway to the living room, my eyes scanning the moving boxes stacked along the walls. I ought to unpack at least a couple of them before my sister comes over. That would give me something to do, somewhere to put my hands.

But I’m drawn to the bookshelf instead, where I take out books and assign them new places. This is pretty much automatic now: sort books, sort thoughts. I stretch up onto my tiptoes to reach the top shelf, but books aren’t the only thing I’m reaching for. I’m reaching for my mother.

“What should I do?” I whisper to her in the darkness.

If only I could feel her arms around me one more time, feel the calm in her fingertips as they tuck my hair behind my ear. But here I am, sleepless and hopeless and alone with the few (albeit critical) choices that remain.

I’ve memorized Peter’s email and now know every single sentence, each word, by heart. He ended by asking if I would consider meeting. Without any demands or expectations, just to see each other and talk a little. I miss you so much. Every time I think about those words, it’s like being sucked into a whirlpool, as if I’m spinning faster and faster in a spiral of suppressed emotions only to ultimately be tossed back up to the surface. He wants to meet. He misses me. I press my palms against my chest, feeling the warmth spreading into my palms. I think of Peter’s tender meditation on the little girl he thought looked like me, the one who could have been ours. And then the desperation that shone through the sentences that followed, the same desperation I myself feel. What are we doing here? What have we done?

My hand moves on its own, and before I have a chance to understand what’s going on, I’ve slammed my fist against the wall beside the bookshelf. I back away, staring at my fingers as if they belonged to someone else.

Then I suddenly hear it—my mother’s voice.

Work is the best medicine.

And in a flash, I understand what I need to do.

I abandon the books even though I’m only halfway through sorting them. In the kitchen, I start my computer and draft a response to Peter. I write without first reading through his email again, without weighing my words or working through my thoughts. I explain that I can’t meet him right now, that there’s something I need to finish first. But that then, after a bit of time has passed and what I need to do is finished, maybe we can get together and talk, if he still wants to. As soon as I type that last bit, I hit “Send,” not giving myself a chance to reconsider and possibly regret anything. That’s how it is now. That’s how it has to be.

I open the file with the text I began a few days ago. I started it purely on impulse, without knowing where it would lead. Now I know.

I will finish writing it, combining the fragments into a narrative—yet another one. Because I’m an author and that’s what authors do. I will write my way through the darkness, giving this text everything I’ve got, hoping that when the last chapter is written I can crawl out the other side. Whatever happens after that, whoever I end up being then, remains to be seen.

I can just make out the hazy contours of someone sitting across the kitchen table from me, anxiously bouncing one leg up and down. Leo. I look up, and there’s no one there. The chair is empty. I turn my face and look out the window. The house across from me is just a dark silhouette now with no lights on to illuminate the rooms. The only clearly visible thing is me, centered in the bluish glow that emanates from my computer. I scroll down to the last sentence I wrote, and my fingers assume their starting positions on the keyboard. Then I begin.

The words take shape beneath my fingertips, almost on their own. Night races by as page is added to page. When the fatigue gradually starts to whistle through my head, I move to bed, setting my computer on the floor underneath and sleeping for a few hours, a fitful sleep filled with muddled nightmares. In the middle of one particularly violent sequence, I wake up, pick up the computer, and write another few pages before I fall asleep again. This same pattern is repeated until the day dawns and I return to the kitchen table. I eat stale bread with the last remnants from the marmalade container and drink tea, noting in passing that I really do need to go shopping today if I’m going to offer my sister anything sensible for dinner. And then I keep working.

Peter sends a response. Do what feels right to you. Take the time you need. I’m here when you’re ready. I read it and keep working.

It’s not until late in the afternoon when I see Leo outside that my fingers take a brief break. What should I say to him? How should I explain that today’s not a good day? That I’m going to be busy for the foreseeable future? Then I realize that he’s not coming over here at all, but rather heading in the opposite direction, home to his place. There’s something strange about the way he moves, and when I crane my neck, I see that he’s not wearing any shoes. No shoes? I stand up halfway from my chair and lean closer to the window. But my eyes are not deceiving me. Leo is wearing only socks as he walks along the flagstone path. Why… How…? He doesn’t look up once, merely stares at the ground. Then he disappears into the house across from me.

My eyes wander from the front door up to the second floor where the curtains are still drawn. As if someone is lying in there, has maybe been lying in there all day. Someone who’s heading into the darkness. I turn my eyes back to the screen.

Now write. Just write.

And I do.