The Watcher

35

They’re home.

I see them arrive, crossing the grass as I stand at my kitchen window peering out. Veronica comes first with Philip a few steps behind. My eyes scan from the one to the other, checking their elegant clothes and neatly done hair. No windbreakers, hiking boots, or tidy backpacks, so Philip’s surprise seems to have been something other than a hike. They don’t seem particularly affectionate with each other, but they’re alive, both of them. Regardless of where they’ve been, regardless of how they spent the day, neither of them killed the other. Of course not. They’re very simply not like that. She isn’t like that. I suppose I knew that, deep down inside.

With my phone in hand, I walk into the living room. I promised myself I wouldn’t write until the Storms returned home. Now there’s nothing standing in my way of returning to my text, aside from one thing. There’s something I need to do first, something I can’t get out of. I stand in front of the books for a while and squeeze the edge of the bookshelf, as if it will give me strength. Sadness moves like a big lump within me. But there is something else, too, an emotion with sharper edges.

I enter the number and listen for the ringtone. Peter answers on the second ring.

“Elena,” he says, and I’d thought I was prepared, but hearing his voice—hearing him say my name—overwhelms me.

Tears well up in my eyes. Not that I’ve been unaware of the longing and the emptiness within me, but it’s as if it’s been hidden behind a transparent veil. Now, as Peter’s voice hits me, that veil is pulled away and everything is exposed, naked and unfathomable.

Maybe he understands that I need a moment to collect myself before he asks a few questions, wonders how I’m doing and if I’m coping. I could respond with something every bit as mundane, something about how things are going, that I’m managing. I could ask him about work, about his parents, or if he’s run into any of the people we used to call our mutual friends. But I can’t get myself to make small talk, not now, not with him.

“There’s something… there’s something I need to ask you, something important.”

Peter’s voice is tinged with hopefulness. He says that he understands, that he wants to talk, too, that that’s why he suggested we meet. He can meet pretty much any time. I can choose—whenever it suits me best. He can make some food at home or we can meet somewhere in the city if I’d prefer. At home. Those words stand out from the others, loom up and come toward me. To be able to go home again. But no, I know that won’t do. It’s much too soon for that.

“I don’t mean like that,” I mumble. “I can’t see you, not yet. I’m in the middle of… in the middle of something.”

He clears his throat. I mean, I had already explained in my email that I had something I needed to finish before we saw each other. He says that must mean I’m writing. But he knows I don’t want to talk about my current projects until they’re done, so he won’t ask.

Then he goes quiet and waits. My fingers squeeze the phone.

“You wrote that something had happened. And then you told me about the little girl you saw at the park.”

Peter hems and haws on the other end. It sounds as if the memory makes him smile.

“Exactly.”

“When you wrote that something had happened, was that what you were referring to? That you saw a child at the park, a girl on a swing who looked like me? Is that why you got in touch?”

Was that the only reason? I want to add, but I refrain.

Peter takes a while to answer. I hear a scraping sound as if he’s pulling out a chair and sitting down. My legs shaking, I walk into the kitchen and follow suit, sitting down in the same seat where I’ve spent so much time in recent days and weeks.

“So much has happened, Elena. Enough that I think we should talk face-to-face. We really need to…”

His words fade away.

My eyes go out the window and straight across the yard. The kitchen light is off over there. There’s no sign of the Storms.

“It’s so great to hear your voice. I’ve… I’ve been missing you. Really missing you.”

Peter’s voice is closer now, as if he’s pressing the phone right to his face. I close my eyes and think yet again about how he used to wrap me in his arms when I was tired or down, how there was a perfect spot for my cheek in the space just above his collarbone. When I had his arms around me, it felt like nothing bad could reach me. I open my eyes again.

“And her?” I say. “How are things with her?”

This time the silence lasts for a long time. Peter hesitates.

“I… Not so well.”

A shock runs through my body.

“What do you mean?”

I hear him fumbling for words on the other end of the phone, hear him hesitate and start again.

“I understand that you’re curious, Elena, but it’s hard to talk about this on the phone. I’d rather that we meet, give ourselves time to have a conversation like that.”

My fingers gripping the phone are suddenly slippery from sweat. I move the phone to my other hand, try to get my pulse to calm down. My throat feels tight, and I have to force the words out.

“You need to tell me what happened. You need to.”

Maybe something in my tone makes it through to him and convinces him.

“OK,” he says. “Then I’ll just say it.”

He sighs into the phone. I remember how his breaths used to feel against my skin, remember the heat and the closeness.

“She died, Elena. She’s dead. That’s what happened.”

Something cold runs through my body and my hand flies up to my mouth. Peter keeps talking, says something that I don’t catch. The room is spinning. I can’t get a word out. In a parallel world, I ask questions and listen while he tells me how and when and what happened. In a parallel world I come off as interested, considerate, appalled.

She’s dead. That’s what happened.

I try pulling my sweater tighter around me, but that doesn’t help. The cold is coming from within. Short, intermittent thoughts come to me, completely without context. Then I register Peter’s voice again. To begin with, it comes from far away. Then I hear it more and more clearly.

“It was an accident, a sheer accident, and I want you to know that I don’t…”

My body reacts on its own, so fast that I hardly understand what’s happening. It’s not until I’ve already hung up on Peter and thrown the phone away from me that I understand. Shivers slowly make their way through each layer of my body until they’ve taken over completely and my teeth start chattering. Why did I call? Why, why, why? I should have realized that it would be like this. On the other side of the questions is neither calmness nor clarity. On the other side, there is only more darkness.

My body starts shaking. I think about what could have been and what will never be, of what I believed and hoped. None of it matters now. I feel that so clearly, that it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Then my consciousness trails away and my thoughts decrease. I get up and lower the blinds, close the window to the outside world. With my computer under my arm, I leave the kitchen.

I’m going to sit down and write, and this time I’m not going to stop until I’m done. I’m going to write the rest of the story, all the way to the final sentence. And then… then I’ll…

I shuffle out to the front hall and then up the stairs.

One step at a time.