Penelope is dead. What am I supposed to do with that? It’s like ending up in a story so much bigger than myself, a story that boggles the mind but Edward claiming he told me, every single day he said he told me, I wonder how often did my daughter die in my heart and in my mind?
“I need some time. Please give me a minute to take this all in,” I say.
* * *
• • •
I step out on the back porch. Leaves and garbage have blown into the corners. Flattened paper cups and candy wrappers have accumulated, the outdoor furniture is covered in bird droppings and spiderwebs. Walking past the outdoor kitchen, past the bricked fireplace, past a dusty garden hose forgotten in a messy heap, I find a muddy bowl flipped upside down, unused for months. I step on something cushy and it squeaks, the sound digs into my brain as annoying as nails on a chalkboard. A torn piece of a Styrofoam box, a chest I used to set up for the stray cats as a shelter. Looking closer, I see what Edward has done, see the footprint from the rubber clogs he wears in the operating room. The wavy pattern so familiar.
He could’ve cared for the strays, could have had them trapped and picked up, but no, he abandoned them, left them to their own devices. I loved those cats, the softest pads you’ve ever felt, but still they were so scrappy, so feral, how they hissed and clawed at me, afraid for their lives all the while I was trying to save them. I imagine Edward stomping on the chest, ripping it apart. I look and look and look but there isn’t a single cat out here. If I wait until morning, or maybe if I switch on a flashlight, will their eyes glow bright green in the dark? I feel rage bubble up as I imagine Edward dropping poison bait in the corners of the patio. Did he collect their stiff dead bodies, put them in a lawn bag and sit them out on the curb?
I jerk around when I feel his hand on my shoulder.
“The cats are all gone. I told you this was going to happen once you stop feeding them.”
I search for words, any words, anything, but there’s just an empty space in my head. My fickle mind refuses to participate. I turn and walk back in the house, away from him.
Inside, a sound in the distance makes us jerk. A clatter.
“What was that?” I ask.
Edward’s eyes are focused. He stands still as if discomfort has frozen him into place. Another noise, above us, muffled in intensity. Barely a screech but it’s something.
“Someone’s up there,” I say and make for the stairs allowing access to the second floor and the half floor above that.
I expect Edward to step in front of me but all he does is say, “Donna, don’t—”
“You son of a bitch,” I spit at him.
I’ve never cursed in Edward’s presence, not even under my breath. I’m as surprised as he is about those words coming out of my mouth.
Be quick, think think think. What’s above the kitchen? A room, a guest room.
Struggling to keep my balance, I reach for the black iron rail. I raise an unsteady foot onto the first step. My stiff hip keeps my legs from responding the way I want them to, but my brain keeps insisting go go go, and they move, do what I want them to do. I sway but catch myself, and I reach and clear the landing, rush down the hallway. The first room on the right. That must be the origin of the noise. I rip open the door and it slams into the wall.
Behind me Edward screams my name and other words I can’t make out.
I rip open the door. The curtains are drawn. It’s hard to see.
* * *
• • •
I’ve never seen a room with so much furniture cramped in every corner. Barely a path remains—chairs stacked, tables pushed to the perimeter of the room, a table propped sideways against a desk, a nightstand upside down on top of that. One wall is covered in framed photographs, not to display them but more for storage, haphazardly and crooked they hang next to one another. A baby in one photograph, a smiling child, a birthday cake, and balloons in another. Below them, countless frames lean up against the wall.
The chaos keeps me from taking a step without worrying about knocking over a chair, a painting, or a vase sitting dangerously close to the edge of a sideboard. Dressers and bedframes leaning randomly against one another. Is Penelope hiding from me underneath a table, behind one of the headboards, a dresser—some of the furniture is draped in sheets and I can’t make out what they are—I’m reminded of the mirrors I shrouded at Shadow Garden.
I venture between a dresser and a chest to get to what looks like a person hiding underneath a bedsheet—a silly thought—but I pull at it. As it drops to the ground, dust swirls in a dance: a coatrack with an umbrella stand. The dust settles everywhere like winter’s first snow. Another sheet, this one reaches all the way to the floor, the outline beneath an oval shape like a small bathtub. I rip at the sheet. It’s stuck. I pull it, then yank at it, and the sheet lets go as if I have won the tug-of-war. A white rattan bassinet.
My body seems to extend either farther out or doesn’t quite reach to where it should, my spatial awareness the equivalent of a clumsy child reaching to catch a ball. I attempt to step over a gaudy decorative flower planter. It has scratches, discolorations, and signs of repair along the bottom edge, it’s dented—who would even keep this thing? My heel grazes against it. I keep my balance by holding on to a shelf. It’s unsteady, slides and tumbles. A crash. I shield my eyes. It’s not over yet. A crystal bowl falls and shatters. Then a glass lamp base—I see it slide off with my own eyes—and I want to scream. No one is here, this is nothing but untidily placed items toppling over in what looks like a cramped and overstocked consignment store.
“What’s this? What’s all this stuff? Why is it all in here?”
“Donna, don’t—”
“Penelope’s here, isn’t she? She’s hiding from me? Is she mad at me?”
“Donna, no, it’s not—”
“Tell me where she is. Tell me what’s happened. I don’t understand what’s going on. What’s this room, what’s all this?”
“You know, Donna. You know she’s dead. You tell me what happened. You tell me how it happened.”
“You lie,” I scream. “All you do is lie.”
47
EDWARD
Edward returned home after dumping the body. He entered the house and expected, like so many times before, to walk into the middle of a blowup between mother and daughter, blotchy faces and red-rimmed eyes. There was this hope they’d had, all those years, that those were just rebellious teenage years and that they’d pass. Yet here he was, the bloody purse in hand, and what he saw didn’t compute.
There was no shouting. No slamming doors. Something eerie above him. A metallic sound, an unpleasant screech, high-pitched, followed by a squeal. Words failed to describe the sound but it reminded him of the chung-chung in the Law & Order episodes he watched every night before he went to sleep. Or was it dun-dun? What was that sound anyway? It occurred to him in that moment that it could be the sound of a jail cell locking.