The Watcher

3

The trip from my sister’s apartment downtown to “my” place in the suburbs takes forty minutes by bus and less than half that by taxi. Cab rides are not a defensible expense based on my current financial situation, but I can’t be bothered to care, not tonight.

I glance at the cabbie’s dark curly hair and then look out the window and watch in silence as the city’s lights flicker past.

I had blamed my early departure on exhaustion and nausea, told her I might be coming down with something. My sister didn’t believe that at all. I could tell from her face, but she didn’t say anything. We hugged before I left.

“See you next Friday,” I mumbled into her hair before I hurried out to the waiting cab. “It’ll be my turn to do dinner then.”

The cab comes to a stop at a traffic light. The red light on my face changes to yellow and then green before we drive on.

It is possible to live a happy life without children. Are you really going to leave him for something like that?

There’s so much my sister doesn’t understand. To start with, she’s never wanted to have children. But it’s more than that between us, so much more than that. I remember our shared childhood, how it felt like the boundaries between us were fluid, as if my sister’s essence were a part of me and vice versa. I remember a time when life was easy, when we were innocent, hopeful, the way children are. Then we grew up. My sister moved away from home, and everything changed.

If I had stayed and opened up to her tonight, if I’d told her about the insomnia and the emptiness and the confusion that is my existence without Peter, post-Peter.

But my sister and I don’t go in for that kind of thing. We leave the piles of stones unturned. We leave unspoken words alone. Maybe she has her own reasons to maintain the distance between us, her own demons she’s wrestling with. Or maybe it’s all due to me, the twisted sister, the distorted mirror image.

The leather upholstery in the cab’s backseat squeaks when I shift around, and the sour taste of wine rises in my throat. The cabbie signals and turns onto my block. The streetlights are broken here, and the lampposts stand like drooping, drowsy giants in the shadows along the side of the road. I stare into the night, feeling the darkness outside boring its way into me.

I take off my shoes and slip inside without turning on any lights. This is my home now and I’m entitled to be here, but I still feel like I’m trespassing. On a rational level, I’m aware of how lucky I am. This is a good house in a good neighborhood, and the terms of my sublet are almost painfully favorable. But as I move toward the kitchen, I feel like disapproving eyes stare at me from every direction, following me through the darkness.

The house doesn’t want me here. Neither of us feels comfortable with the other, but you can’t explain that kind of thing to your sister. She would blink uncomprehendingly at me, maybe shake her head and mutter something about nonsense. She would probably think I was being unappreciative, and if so, for good reason. My sister was the only one who knew of a place I could sublet on such short notice. Indeed, she was the only one I could even ask. I don’t have any close friends left, and it’s been several months since I’ve been in touch with any of the other freelancers I used to hang out with.

I stop in the kitchen doorway and peer into the room, which is also shrouded in darkness. The tabletop is empty apart from my computer. No one has made tea and put a cozy over the teapot to keep it warm until I came home. No one has made a couple of sandwiches or covered a slice of freshly baked pound cake with plastic wrap and set it on a plate in the fridge. And no one has left a note intended for me to read when I come home late from a trip to the library or maybe to hear an author read at some bookstore, a note with a loving greeting, words testifying to how much I mean to him.

I could boil a little water and make tea for myself. I could make some sandwiches or bake something, but it’s not the same. And no matter what else I do to fool myself, it doesn’t change the fact that no one leaves little notes for me, here, there, and everywhere—on the kitchen table, inside the bathroom cabinet, under the pillow. A puzzle with only two pieces.

I sit down on one of the two chairs, stare out the window, and try to keep my thoughts under control, try to prevent them from racing back in time. But looking forward isn’t an option, either. The paths that used to be possible are all closed. The world has shrunk. Existence consists only of what I see around myself. What I should do is stand up and head for the bedroom. I should at least attempt to sleep. If I don’t get up now, I may never do it. I may end up sitting here forever, a standing stone in the gloom. Perhaps I’ll eventually crumble to pieces and disintegrate. Or else I’ll be doomed to sit here staring out the kitchen window until one eternity ends and the next begins.

I become self-absorbed. The clock on the wall ticks, and the darkness deepens outside the window. It’s as if I fade into a trance and it lasts right up until a movement out in the yard catches my eye. There’s someone out there, a shadow figure at the fringes of the light cast by an old-fashioned streetlamp. An instant later, the light falls on a man on his way toward the house across the street. It must be the same man I saw in the kitchen over there earlier, the one who looked so elegant. But tonight his dark hair is disheveled, and the back of his suit jacket is wrinkly. He does something with his hands, straightens his pants or his shirt, maybe. His steps are hesitant, his feet drag on the ground. Suddenly he trips and looks like he’s going to fall, but then he regains his balance and takes the final steps up to the house.

A strip of light from the second-floor window illuminates the façade of the building across from me as he puts his key into the front door. A figure with long hair—a woman in a nightgown—pulls back a heavy curtain and peers down at him. It only lasts a second, then the curtain falls back into place. The man opens the door and disappears inside.

The window pane in front of me goes dark again. I can make out the outlines of my own form in it, the faint reflection of a woman at a table. There’s something uncanny about the image. I shiver and lean forward to lower the blinds. This motion gets me going, and I finally make it to my feet.

Enough of this, I think. Without really understanding what I mean by that.