And everything inside me encourages me to stay when I know I should leave.
Lowering my head, I quietly mutter a few words of encouragement to myself.
I will be wild.
I will be brave.
I will let my heart fly free.
Last night, I had written another letter to Fenna, another one I know I’ll never send.
I search for you in other people, but I know I’ll never find you there—only pieces and parts and vague reflections. I suppose it is what happens when one is suffering from the grief of missing someone. They look for that person in others. I look for you in other people, Fenna, but I know I’ll never find you because you aren’t there.
Sadie’s panting urges me back into the present.
When Evi is finished she rushes toward me, dog in tow, and then she moves past me quickly.
Brows knotted, I spin around and my eyes follow where she moves in the direction of the door. “Where are you going, Evi?” I’m nearly flabbergasted. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to this woman, Evi?” My voice is a whisper-yell in this suffocating silence.
Evi makes a face. “Yes, I usually would, Mila, but it isn’t what she wanted.” Evi attempts to talk to me while playing with Sadie that’s panting and barking and clearly anxious to get out of this house!
“What do you mean it isn’t what she wanted?” Confusion forces me to frown.
Evi cranes her neck in my direction, eyes wild. “It wasn’t what she wanted.” With Sadie’s rambunctiousness—jumping, barking, leaping—Evi is shoved into the coat stand like a rag doll. “The attic is on the top floor.” She gestures with two fingers in the direction of another flight of stairs. “If you take those stairs all the way to the top, you’ll find her.”
I flinch when Sadie lets out a bark which bounces off the walls.
“I will see you later, Mila.” Evi’s smile is brittle as she maneuvers herself out the door with the strangest, jerkish movements and then it shuts.
BOOM.
They’re gone.
I’m alone and standing in the midst of complete silence in this foyer after being given the vaguest instructions known to man. My heart pounds but it isn’t from nervousness, maybe more or less from the curiosity which flutters through me. It urges me to take a step forward nonetheless and then another and another until I find myself standing in the middle of the den, lips parted, breaths shallow, I move forward feeling as if I’m drifting and off and into some other world. This room feels like a sacred place to me as if not too many people have marched through here. My eyes scan the white walls, and the polished floors and then they move over the big windows. Keeping my footsteps light and quick I walk farther into the large room and find a table with a single stool next to it. A little smile affects my lips when I edge closer to it and examine the now cold cup of tea left there.
The view beyond the glass if of the busy street below and this morning through the hustle and bustle going on outside, I can make out where Daan’s produce stand is. It is a direct view from where I stand.
This is where she sits each morning…This is the big window…Why do I feel trapped too while standing in the middle of this room, in this house with the pink door?
“Are you the woman?” A soft voice earns my attention.
The breath which gets sucked into my lungs is mighty painful.
Light footsteps follow and I know she is getting closer, closer, closer to where I now stand.
“Ah, yes.” I laugh a little, still don’t twist around to face her though.
Because I need courage…
Fiddling with the sleeve of my shirt, I keep my head low and pretend to busy myself with the fully functional button there, buying time…
“I’m so happy you came.” There is sincerity in her voice, and I know she truly is happy that I’m here.
Why does this feel like a violation? Why do I feel as if I am doing something wrong? Why do I feel as if I should dash for the door, blow right through it and never return here? Something deep within me feels not just wild but wickeddddd…
“I am so pleased to meet you Mila.” Tess lingers just behind me.
Reaching a hand up, lazily I pull off my hat then s…l…o…w…l…y twist around to face her. The action I swear takes me an eternity and then I lift my eyes to meet her perfectly blue ones.
“Oh.” Tess says nothing more, only stares in my direction like she could do so for a while.
Her eyes move over me in a way I haven’t experienced before—maybe in the way an artist examines something of interest, I’m not quite sure. That stare of hers feels prying. Yet it’s reserved, maybe even hiding something. She’s observant but she doesn’t want me to know that interesting quirk about her personality. Emotion floods from her features. But soon it all seems to run dry... I peer into her face a little longer and decide that Evi was right…something is missing.
It’s all in this woman’s eyes.
They’re entrancing, but, they’re empty, devoid of something.
Heart-shaped face, enviable nose, delicate chin, pink kissable lips and hands.
Her hands…
Small. Prehensile. Multi-fingered.
They undoubtedly belong to those of artist.
Unique.
They could sculpt clay, sketch wondrous things, and maybe soothe a human being too.
I expected them to be more colorful and perhaps stained with paint that won’t wash away. But they are clean. Those hands of hers are delicate but there’s something magical about them—something strong. Slender fingers covered by milky skin that I swear could shape the world along with my future if they were ever in them. A smile lights up my insides when I accept that this woman in fact does hold my future in her hands. I am her employee after all who has signed up for almost a lifetime of nudity. This woman’s wage paying capabilities will determine just how happy I will be here. And I’m here. Unable to believe it, I swallow hard and then try my best to relax in her presence which somehow feels simply enigmatic.
Silence surrounds us and fills every corner of this very strange house. And I decide that it’s beautiful that we can linger in peace and quiet without it being awkward. Only our breaths can be heard along with the harsh tick coming from that clock on the wall.
How can someone bear listening to that exceptionally loud tick and tock all day?
I am inclined to march across the room, rip that godforsaken clock off the way and break it right in half. There are clocks everywhere in this house I’ve noticed but the one on the wall across the room is undoubtedly the loudest. Who on God’s green earth needs to know the time this badly? My face twists just a little when I ask myself the question and then decide that looking out one of the windows around this house is always an option if one needs to get an estimate of whether it’s night or day.
Tess blinks a few times, face pales, and those electric blues seem to grow brighter by the second.
The smile on my face feels as if it’s there to stay. I am genuinely pleased to meet this woman and to see her up close and in the flesh. She is real. Not just an image in my mind. Not just an unspoiled picture I see each morning when I trod the busy streets outside. She-is-real. The woman in the window is real. And she is standing right in front of me, living, breathing and apparently…completely fucking speechless.