Jack, it's June 4th. It's 7:31 AM I'm sitting on the
floor. I don't know why I started
there. Like that explains anything.
I'm sitting on the floor beside the couch and there's the quilt
that my mother made me halfway in my lap.
It smells like rain and old coffee and Dennis, I should
probably wash it. I don't know if I will.
It feels strange to watch something just because someone
sat and touched it. I don't want to punish the
fabric for being kind. That's stupid, Jack.
It's just a blanket Dennis left about 20 minutes ago.
Or maybe 30. The clock on the wall says 731,
but it sits 731 when I first sat down.
So either I've been sitting here for exactly no time at all, or
the clock has decided to be dramatic in a way I do not
currently have the patience for. He woke up before me, and I know
that because when I opened my eyes I could hear him in the
kitchen. He wasn't being loud, just the
small sounds people make when they're trying not to become
part of someone else's house. He made coffee, or he tried to,
at least. It was too strong and bitter
enough for me to consider rude, but I drank some anyway because
I didn't want to tell a broken man that his abilities in the
kitchen were also broken. He looked awful, Jack.
He looked hollowed out, like somebody had taken a spoon to
the inside of him overnight and scraped until there was only
enough left to stand upright. He apologized for staying, and I
told him not to, and that I really didn't mind, but he
apologized anyway. He had One Cup of coffee, sort
of. Mostly he just held it, both
hands around the mug like it was something alive he was trying
not to drop. And then he said he had to go to
the shop and I told him he shouldn't work today, and he
said he knew that. I told him nobody would even
expect him to work today, and he said he knew that too.
I thought it sounded like grief coming from his mouth, and I
still think it does. He said if he stayed still for
too long that he wouldn't know what he would do.
He sounded embarrassed by it, as if stillness was a bad habit,
that he didn't like indulging it.
And then he said work made sense.
He said that things break and you try to fix them and then
either they run or they don't. And I smiled when he said it
because it sounded like him, like grease and metal and
ordinary logic. But now I keep thinking maybe
that's a terrible way to talk about broken things.
I don't know. I don't know what I'm allowed to
think anymore, Jack. He leapt through the front door
and stood on the porch for a second before going down the
steps. I watched him from the window,
because apparently I'm the sort of woman who watches men leave
now. His truck started on the first
try, and I don't know why I noticed that, but I did.
It sounded too healthy for the morning.
And then he drove off too fast down the gravel driveway, and I
thought, that poor man, I really did.
I thought, he's going to bury himself in work because if he
doesn't, he'll have to sit with the silence and the stillness of
his wife being gone. And then I thought, no, never
mind. No, I don't like the thought
that came after Uncas inside, but he waited until Dennis's
truck was gone before he even attempted to come in.
He didn't walk in or wander in with his usual royal little
attitude, like he was doing me a favour by crossing the
threshold. He bolted inside.
I opened the door because I saw him on the porch and he came in
so fast he nearly tripped over my foot.
And then he ran straight to the couch, straight there.
And then he jumped on to the cushion where Dennis had slept,
and he started digging his claws into the quilt.
He wasn't kneading, no, it wasn't that sweet little cat
thing they do when they look half asleep and pleased with
themselves. He dug at the blanket like he
was trying to bury a smell. And I said, well, that's rude.
He's grieving, you know. Then I stood there in my robe,
scolding the cat on behalf of a married man whose wife was
pulled from the river yesterday. So that's where I am as a
person. Uncle didn't care though.
He just shoved his face into the blanket and made that low
growling sound again, the one he made from last night, just the
small engine of disgust starting up somewhere in his chest.
He climbed under the couch and laid exactly where Dennis has
left. And then he looked at me once,
very flat and unimpressed, and I wish it felt cute.
Maybe it does, a little. There is a mouse on the porch.
I didn't notice it when Dennis left, or maybe it wasn't there
yet. I don't like that.
I don't like the idea of things arriving on my porch after a man
leaves. But it was there when Anca came
in, small and grey and not really pretty, placed right in
front of the mat like a little offering.
Again, I said thank you, because I'm half worried about what
would happen if I didn't show appreciation for the grotesque
little gift. And I stood there in my doorway,
in my socks, thanking a cat for a dead mouse.
And the worst part is, is I think I meant it.
He brought me something. That should count for something,
shouldn't it? Even if the something has tiny
feet and stiff whiskers and eyes that look too much like little
black sesame seeds. I had to go get a grocery bag
from under the sink, and I scooped the mouse up without
touching it with my bare hand. And then I apologized while I
did it, which I'm also not proud of.
I didn't throw it in the trash, that would have felt too cruel,
and I put it under the cedar tree at the side of the cabin.
I didn't bury it, I didn't have a shovel, and I wasn't about to
go looking for one, but I tucked it under the roots where the
rain doesn't hit as hard. I don't know, that was probably
stupid Jack, but it felt like the kindest bad option.
I washed my hands after twice the water came out normal and I
feel like I need to say that now.
The water came out normal. It was clear with no smell.
It didn't have any penny scent or river scent.
It was just water. I'm not working today Jack and
that feels important to say too though and I don't know why.
It's my day off and that sounds like a joke someone meaner than
me would make. Like the whole town looked at me
and said here Holly have a day all to yourself.
Sit with it and see what comes. I don't want to see what comes,
Jack. I want to sleep for 14 hours and
wake up before any of this started.
No, that's not true. I want to wake up May 16th and
find Jack before he goes into the woods.
I want a lot of impossible things this morning.
Mostly I just want my couch to stop looking like a horrible
confession that even a priest would judge me for.
Jack, it's 10:38 AM and I am trying very hard not to call
Dennis. That sounds pathetic, doesn't
it? It feels pathetic.
I keep walking past the phone like it's going to do something
on its own, like it's going to ring and save me from deciding
whether I'm the sort of woman who calls a grieving man at 10
in the morning because she got frightened by a cat and a dead
mouse in her own thoughts. No, I'm not calling him.
I am saying that out loud because maybe if I say it enough
it will become a personality treat.
I am not calling him, I'm not. I'm not going to do it.
They're very strong in me. See, the pipes are making a
knocking noise. It's not the sink running or hot
water causing strange sounds in the walls.
Just the soft little knocking sound from somewhere in the
kitchen wall. 3 taps and then quiet and then nothing long
enough for me to think I imagined it.
It's probably just old plumbing. Everything in this cabin is old
enough to complain, and the floors complain and the windows
complain. The pipes complain and I
complain. We are a very vocal little
household, but there is something about this sound that
I don't like, Jack. It's too polite, like it's
waiting for me to answer it there.
Do you hear that? Of course you hear it.
You're a tape recorder. Your whole job is hearing things
that I wish I could ignore. I checked under the sink, which
was brave of me because under sink spaces always look like
places something could live if it had poor posture and bad
intentions. There's nothing leaking there.
There isn't a puddle or an odd smell or a broken piece of metal
that I don't know what to do with.
It's just the pipes, Jack pipes that have apparently decided
they're lonely and want to start a conversation.
I made myself toast, but I burnt it not too bad, just enough that
the edges went black and the kitchen smelt like the diner
after someone forgets they're responsible for the bread.
I scraped the burnt part into the sink.
And then I immediately hated that I did that because the
flake stuck to the porcelain and looked like little dig bugs.
So I cleaned the sink. And then I cleaned the counter.
And then I cleaned the mug that Dennis had used and then I
wished I had it. Not because I wanted it dirty or
anything, that sounds disgusting, but there was
something about washing it that felt wrong, as if I was erasing
proof that he had been there this morning.
The house feels too awake today, Jack.
Maybe that's the problem. Usually when I'm home on a day
off, the cabin feels lazy. A little damp maybe, but today
it feels like it's listening. The couch has Dennis's shape in
it, even with Anca trying to flatten it back into something
harmless. The kitchen smells like coffee
made badly, and the sink looks too clean.
And the phone just keeps sitting there, and I know phones sit,
that's what they do until they ring.
But this one feels like it's waiting with me.
I picked it up once just to hear the dial tone, that's all.
I don't know why I did that. Maybe I want to prove the line
was alive. Maybe I want to prove it wasn't.
It hummed in my ear, a plain little sound, and for a second I
thought I could hear something under it.
One of those tiny sounds a person makes when they're trying
not to cry and don't want you to know that they're on the other
end. I hung up and I did not call
him. I am not calling him.
I am becoming extremely powerful in this one very small way.
I am choosing to ignore it. Jack, I keep thinking about what
Denis said, that if he stayed still for too long that he
wouldn't know what he would do and this sounds sad.
It does, I know it does. If Suzanne had said that, I
would bring her soup and sit with her and tell her that she
didn't have to do anything to day.
If Frederick said that either of them, I would assume that he
would need a cigarette and maybe a better personality.
But I would still worry if I said that.
I don't know. Maybe I have said that in
different words. Maybe that's what all these
tapes are. It's just me trying not to stay
still too long inside my own head.
But when Dennis says it, everyone else's voices crawl in.
Gordon at my car window and I'll go on the couch digging like the
blanket offended him, the mouse on the porch with its little
dead eyes, and the river bringing Lila back.
No, not back. That is not what happened.
Found. That is the word that people
will use. They found her as if she had
misplaced herself, as if the river was kind enough to return
something that wandered too far upstream.
I hate that. I hate how people talk about
dead women like they became objects as soon as the worst
thing has happened to them. A body or a discovery, evidence
and remains. That poor woman, something in
the river, She had a name. You know, Lila.
I don't even know if I'm saying it right when I say it alone.
Isn't that awful to be frightened for a woman and not
be sure you know how her name felt in her own mouth?
No, not now. I am not doing that.
Now I'm going to make more coffee.
Coffee is a normal thing, Jack. People make coffee and people
drink their coffee. People do not stand in their
living rooms being bullied by plumbing in a cat.
It's me, Jack. It's two O 7:00 PM.
The police came by Sheriff Bell and Deputy Rusk.
They just left know I'm telling you their names like you can do
anything with them, but the names feel important.
Today they came about. Lila.
Lila Stillman. I don't think I've said her full
name out loud before. And that feels wrong too,
doesn't it? To be tangled up in someone's
life, even from the ugly side of it, and still be surprised by
the weight of their last name? Stillman.
It sounds like a sentence that someone forgot to finish.
They were polite. They were polite in that careful
way that people get when they know they're holding something
sharp and they don't want you to notice until the edge is already
against your skin. They said I wasn't in any
trouble, and then I said people only say that when trouble has
already chosen a seat at the dinner table.
Neither of them laughed, which was fair because it wasn't
really funny. They asked if they could come in
and I said yes, because what else do you say when the sheriff
is standing on your porch? You say yes, you move a pile of
laundry with your foot and you apologize for the smell of burnt
toast and you suddenly become aware of every dirty cup in your
sink, as if the cups have agreed to testify against you.
Anca stayed on the couch the whole time.
He didn't run or hide, he just sort of watched them from the
blanket. His ears were tucked half back
and his little face was as flat as ever.
He didn't like them, I know he didn't, but he didn't hate them
in the way that he hated Dennis being here.
No, no. Hate is maybe too big of a word
for a cat. Maybe.
I don't know. Deputy Rusk noticed him.
Of course he did. Men like that notice everything
and then decide which parts they want to say out loud, just to
see what you'll do with it. They asked about Dennis.
They asked about his whereabouts, about his state of
mind. That was the phrase they used.
State of mind, like a mind is a place with roads and borders and
a little sign when you enter it that says welcome, please drive
carefully. I told them he left around 7 and
I said that he went to the shop and I told them that.
He said if he stayed still for too long he wouldn't know what
he would do. I wish I hadn't told them that.
Not because it wasn't true, but because it was true in a way
that changed as soon as someone else heard it.
In my mouth this morning it was grief, but in their notebooks
maybe it became something else. That's the trouble with talking.
You hand someone a sentence, warm and alive, and then they
pin it down flat like a moth. They asked if Dennis had seemed
upset and I said yes, of course he did, his wife is dead.
And then they asked if he seemed afraid and I said I didn't know.
And then they asked if he seemed angry and I said I don't think I
know what his anger even looks like.
And I hated that answer. The second I gave it.
It sounded like a woman admitting she had been standing
too close to a fire and calling it weather.
They asked if he had any cuts on him or scrapes or any marks that
seemed odd, especially on his hands, and I said I hadn't seen
any. And then I realized I had been
looking at his hands. I had looked this morning while
he was holding the mug. And I looked at his hands
because Gordon put that sentence into my head and it keeps
walking around in there with muddy shoes and I hate that I
noticed it. Jack, the sheriff, asked if
Denis had ever hurt me, and I said no, that was an easy
answer. And then he asked if Denis had
ever frightened me, and that was not an easy answer.
I said no, not exactly and not exactly is a horrible little
phrase. It lets fear live in the room,
but makes it stand near the wall where everybody can pretend not
to see it, like a wallflower. And then they asked if Denis had
ever talked about Lila with me, and I told them what he said,
that she wasn't much for company lately.
And I said that he said that she had left.
And I told them that I asked if she took her things.
And he said some, some. God, Jack, I still hate that
word. Some is a toothbrush by the sink
and a coat on a hook. And they asked about the mug at
the shop. No, wait, that's not right.
I brought it up. I don't know why I brought it
up. The white mug with the faded
blue flowers and the old lipstick stain on the rim and
the dust on the handle. I said it out loud and both of
them got still. In that almost invisible way
people do when something matters.
I wanted to unsay it. But you can't unsay something
once the room had heard it. You can only sit there and watch
it become part of the air that the sheriff and his deputy
breathe in. They asked about May 30th.
Jack. May 30th is important.
I know it. I knew it before they said it.
I think I knew it the first time the radio said whoever borrowed
the 30th please return it clean. And I think I knew it when I
woke up with thir under my nails and no mud on the floor.
I knew it when everyone at the diner looked at me like I was
the only one who hadn't agreed to pretend.
But hearing the sheriff say it made the date feel like a person
standing behind me, breathing hot air down my neck.
They asked where I was on May 30th and I told them I don't
remember. And when I said it, the whole
room changed, Not loudly. There wasn't anybody gasping or
accusing me of anything. Nobody said what do you mean you
don't remember a whole day, Holly?
Because normal people remember most days, Holly.
They were too calm. And that was worse.
And then Sheriff Bell said that they would ask carefully, and I
don't know why that made me want to cry.
Maybe because careful is not really the same as kind.
They asked if I saw Dennis that day and I said I didn't know.
They asked if I was with him and I said I don't know.
They asked if he ever asked me a lie for him and I said no.
They asked if he ever asked me to say he was somewhere, and I
said no. And then they told me about
Lila. They said that she didn't leave
voluntarily, not in those words. Exactly.
At first they walked around it. People do that with death.
They put their hands out in front of them.
They feel for the furniture like they're walking blind so they
don't walk into the worst part too fast.
But that's what they meant. She didn't leave, not in the way
people said she left, at least not with the suitcase and anger
and some of her things. Not with Dennis standing in the
kitchen saying she wasn't much for company lately.
They're investigating her death as a homicide.
Jack, a word that sounds far too official to belong in my living
room. They said there were signs of
foul play. I asked them what signs and they
wouldn't tell me. Of course they wouldn't, and
they probably shouldn't, and I hate them for that.
Anyway, the sheriff said the river makes a mess, but not that
kind. No, wait, that was Rusk.
I think it's blurring already, Jack, and that bothers me.
That happened less than an hour ago, and already the
conversation is starting to crumple around in my head like
wet paper. Sheriff Bell said the river just
returns what it can't keep. That was a terrible sense.
The river just returns what it can't keep.
I wanted to ask how many things the river had kept, but I
didn't. I'm learning some questions make
more room than answers can fill. Before they left, Sheriff Bell
gave me a card with the office number and tiny black letters on
it. It had the office hours printed
on it like murder cares about business hours.
He said to call if I remember anything about May 30th.
But then Deputy Rusk said, or if May 30th remembers you, and I
looked at him and I must have looked at him so horribly
because he actually looked sorry afterward.
Or maybe I'm making that up. And then he asked me if I like
chocolate. He said, do you like chocolate,
Holly? And I said, well, I don't even
know what I said, Jack. Yeah, I think I said yeah, but
it came out like a question. And then he took a candy bar
from his pocket and he set it on my table.
It was dark chocolate. The deep red wrapper with the
pretty script logo, the one with the toffee pieces, the one that
I bought when I thought the worst thing happening to me was
a headache and Gordon watching me for too long.
I don't think I ever told anyone about that candy bar.
I know I didn't tell Deputy Rusk.
Maybe everybody just likes dark chocolate with toffee pieces.
Maybe the general store only carries one kind now.
Maybe he just keeps candy in his pocket because he's odd and
people are allowed to be odd without it meaning something
more. I am trying very hard to be
generous with reality, Jack, but reality is not returning the
favour. The card is still on the table
with the candy bar beside it, and Anka is still on the couch.
He keeps looking from me to the table and then to the card and
to the candy bar and then back to me, as if I'm supposed to
understand something but I do not understand.
I notice everything and I understand nothing.
Jack. I said that yesterday or maybe
the day before, but it's still true.
Hi Jack, it's me. It's 6:03 PM now.
I ate dinner sort of early tonight.
It was just toast, not burnt this time, and a bowl of tomato
soup. I did not eat the candy bar.
It's still on the table. Jack, the soup tasted like warm
pennies because I was thinking about pennies, not because it
actually tasted like pennies. I'm clarifying that for myself.
Jack, the soup was normal, the water used was normal, and the
spoon was normal. And I'm saying normal too much,
which is how you can tell I've lost track of it.
I didn't call Dennis and he hasn't called me, and that feels
like a kindness and a punishment all at once.
I keep picking up the phone and putting it back down.
I'm not dialling it, Jack. I'm just holding it.
The receiver has weight to it. I like that about older phones.
You know, when you're holding one, it's not like those plastic
things that people carry around now in the cities, the ones that
look like toys, that make everybody seem reachable at all
times, as if that were actually possible.
A proper phone has a body. You pick it up and the house
knows, and you put it down and the house knows that, too.
I thought about calling Suzanne, but then I thought about trying
to explain the sheriff showing up and Anca and the mouse and
the sink, and I put the phone down.
I thought about calling the Sheriff's Office, but then I
imagined Deputy Rusk answering and saying something like, has
the day started speaking back to you yet?
And it pissed me off, and I put the phone down even harder.
I thought about calling Dennis, and I held the receiver for so
long that my hand started sweating against the plastic.
And then Uncle made that sound. Not loud, just enough for me to
hear it, like he was reminding me he still had teeth and he
wanted to use them. So I put the phone down again.
He's a good cat, Jack. A strange cat, but good.
Probably the only sensible man in Cedar Bend.
That's unfair. He isn't a man, that's why he's
sensible. I keep thinking about Lila.
Not as Denis's wife, I mean, Yeah, sure.
As Dennis's wife. That's how I knew her first.
That's how everyone knew her. Probably attached to him by
language, if nothing else. Just Dennis's wife or the
mechanic's wife. Or poor Lila.
That poor woman. Something from the river.
Something in the bag. I hate that she had a name
before she had a husband. She had hair that wouldn't stay
pinned, apparently. And she had a mug with blue
flowers and a lipstick stain. And she had ankles.
God, no. I'm sorry.
I keep thinking about my dream with the purple dress and the
black lace going down to the river and the hand coming up and
pulling the cloth under and the feet that weren't mine, Jack.
The dragging and the screaming and the dream where I was
running, trying to get to the clearing first.
I was trying to get there first, Jack, And that word bothers me.
First. Before what?
Before who was she trying to get there?
What was she running from? Was she running from him?
No, no, I don't know that I do not know that.
I need to be careful with what I let myself know.
And that sounds strange, but I mean it, Jack.
There are things a person can know before they have proof, and
those are the things that ruin you in public.
You start answering questions that nobody asked, and you start
looking at men's hands and thinking cats for dead mice, and
then you start wondering if grief can sit on your couch and
leave stains. Alka still hasn't left the
couch. Every now and then he digs his
claws into the blanket again. And I know that quilt is ruined,
little pulls everywhere, and I should be mad, but I'm not.
I don't think I wanted to use it again anyways.
Hold on, Jack, do you hear that? You're a tape recorder.
You don't get to decide what not to hear.
Anka's looking at the kitchen. The sink just turned on.
I know that sounds stupid. I know pipes do things.
But it turned on like a hand turned it on.
Jack, I'm not touching it. I'm not even in the kitchen.
Anka's making that sound again. That mean low sound.
I'm standing up. I don't want to.
I am. The water is running.
The handle is turned. I can see it.
I can see that the handle is turned.
It smells. God, Jack, it smells like
pennies. No, no, no, no, no.
I am not going closer. I'm not.
That's the pipes. That's it's just old pipes.
It's just old pipes, Jack, that is air in the line of old pipes.
That is the house settling. That is the rain that's built up
underground. And Jack, I could see something
coming up from the drain. No, no, no, I can't.
No, no, I can't. I can't.
It's just dark. Drains are dark.
The kitchen is dark. That's what they are.
I'm turning around. Holes are allowed to be dark.
I am turning off my living room light.
I am turning it off right now. Oh God.
I'm going to walk into the kitchen now and I'm going to
turn off the water. I'm not going to look.
Jack, it's me and it's 10:34 PM. I'm going to sleep now, or I'm
going to go try to sleep. The doors are locked and the
windows are locked and the porch light is on.
I checked everything twice. And then I checked it all again,
because twice didn't feel like a real number anymore.
Anka is still inside. He's still on the couch.
Of course he is. And the sink is off.
I don't want to talk about that anymore.
Actually, I put a chair in front of the kitchen doorway, and that
feels stupid now that I'm saying it out loud.
It's just the chair. It isn't going to stop water or
something dark poking its way up from the drain.
But I put it there anyway. Jack and the sheriff's card is
on the table. The candy bar is beside it.
I haven't ate it yet. I don't think I'm going to.
I keep looking at the wrapper, though.
That deep red colour looks darker at night, almost brown,
almost black. Maybe I'll throw it away in the
morning. Or maybe I won't.
I keep thinking about what Sheriff Bell said.
The river just returns what it can't keep.
I keep thinking about what Rusk said to call if May 30th
remembers me. I think it's starting to
Remember Me. I keep thinking about what
Dennis said before he fell asleep, and that's what I'm
afraid of. All of them sound like different
people talking around the same closed door.
I don't know who killed Lila Jack, and I'm saying that
because part of me keeps trying to decide, and I don't think I'm
allowed to yet. I don't think I'm allowed to
decide anything yet. I don't know who killed her.
I don't know where I was on May 30th.
I don't know why the sheriff looked so unsurprised when I
told him that. I don't know why Unka hates the
smell that Dennis had left behind.
I don't know why the sink turned on and I don't know if I really
saw something. I don't know why the candy bar
is here, and I don't know if not knowing these things makes me
feel innocent or stupid. Maybe both, maybe neither.
Maybe I'm just being too hard on myself, or maybe I'm not being
hard enough. I'm so tired, Jack.
I'm tired in places I don't think sleep can reach anymore.
If Dennis calls, I am not answering.
I am saying that to you because I don't trust myself to remember
it alone. If there is a knock at my door,
I am not answering that either. Not tonight.
Not even if it is somebody I know.
Not even if I am desperate to see that person.
Especially not if it's somebody I know and not if I am
desperate. Goodnight, Jack.