Then suddenly from outside I heard the familiar screeches. If all the misfortunes of the world could be contained in one sound, it might be the bright hell of the coyote. Then I heard them make a new sound. An angry growl that sounded more like a human imitating an animal than an animal itself. I ran, with my cooling child in hand, to the door. Kurt the dog was being attacked by three slavering gray beasts.
That dog had nothing to prepare him for his horror, staring down the imminence of his own death. He’d been mistreated for the first year of his life and then sent to a kill shelter and had no idea he was set to die until he was saved by a young man with a love of the great outdoors. He’d gone from vicious kicks to steel cages to pure love and heaping bowls of food and scaling mountains and sleeping in a bed with a warm body.
I saw River come running from his yurt. Then I looked down and watched as one of the coyotes’ teeth, glistening and white, caught on Kurt’s fur. I saw the dog pull back and a strip of his furred skin come away from him. I screamed and one of them came toward me. Everything was going so fast. I didn’t think with my human brain and so I suppose that’s why I did the only thing that made sense. My hands released my glowing fetus. Everything stopped. The night went clear, a wash of starlight. I felt my knees buckle and the dog ran into my house.
—Where’s Kurt! River screamed.
I pointed inside. River, ignorant to what had happened, ran in and came out holding the enormous bloodied dog in his arms.
—Thank you, he said to me, weeping.
—I didn’t do anything, I said. Then I went inside and collapsed on the disgusting couch.
* * *
WHEN I WOKE, LENNY WAS stroking my hand. I noticed he’d somehow turned the air conditioner off. Perhaps with his cane, like a geriatric crusader, hitting the switch on his first jab.
—Joan, he said, thank goodness. I wasn’t sure if you fainted or what. My God, those vicious creatures! You’re bloodied, dear, did they get you? Did they nip you somewhere? They don’t generally go after humans.
I didn’t say anything. I was very still. I thought about what those people with their normal lives would think about me now. I knew I would never be able to tell anyone, not even Alice. Nobody wants to hear about great suffering or anarchic decisions. They think it’s an offense against their ears, their lives.
—I cleaned up your vomit from earlier. I understand you were embarrassed. Of course, I was, too. I told you a great deal of things about my life that—I won’t say I regret it, but I don’t feel like you understood. I don’t think you understand men on the one hand and love on the other.
I nodded, feeling my hands lit with blood.
—Proust said that hell was the suffering that comes from the inability to love. I weep for your suffering, Joan. I know you have your reasons. I hoped you would tell them to me, as I told you mine, but perhaps your condition is worse, even, than I suspected.
I looked at him, pressed my palm to my empty belly, and cackled like a witch.
He was wearing the watch. He was sure of his mental state in that moment, and that was why he was wearing it. He believed that the drugs were going to save him.
—Joan, are you all right?
—Leonard! I am more than all right! I am absolutely wonderful! Where is my red dress? Where is my red dress?
I looked around crazily.
—Joan, please. You’re—
—I’m depraved, I said. Isn’t it fun?
Outside, it was quiet. The coyotes had gone about their evening. Soon Eleanor would be back with the rags and I would use them for the blood. I didn’t have a washing machine so I would have to bag them and drive them to the dump. I didn’t remember a washing machine in the Poconos. It was possible we didn’t have one in that crappy mountain home.
—I’ve just never seen you like this, Leonard said.
I turned away and walked toward the window. I could see very clearly where the child had fallen. I would have to move out of this horrible house immediately. I could never comprehend how someone could continue to live in a place where a loved one had died.
—Joan!
—Shh, darling. I have a craving for a chopped egg sandwich. With mayonnaise and some nice cracked pepper. Let me make us a platter. You can’t take the pill on an empty stomach.
He nodded agreeably and I moved to the kitchen. My voice just then had come from deep in my lungs, not from the back of my mouth, as a different older man once remarked of me. Speak from here, he told me, jabbing me just below my breasts. You sound unattractive when you speak from the back of your mouth. It’s low-class.
It was strange to no longer be in pain after all those hours of it. I boiled the water for the eggs with a drop of vinegar, as my mother had done. Not as she’d taught me but as I’d watched her do. I boiled the water and felt the blood drying in my underwear.
Lenny once said he could understand how a woman like me could turn a man crazy. Not even my looks, he said, which were formidable (formidable!) but my presence. I was very real, he said.
It didn’t take me long to drop Lenny down the rabbit hole. By that point I knew a good amount about Lenore. I knew her favorite colors and music and foods and precisely the shitty way she prepared an egg. Absently I drew my hair into a sloppy chignon. I’d seen several pictures of Lenore—in the ocean and in the pool and at formal events—and I’d noted the way she crossed her arms and smiled when she was shy. I imbued my knowledge of her and his love for her and his betrayal of her into my role. Had I been going after a part, had playing Lenore been an audition, I’d have nailed it.
I’d learned that I could keep him in the hole the longest when I never let the Lenore spell be broken. Mostly that meant being fawning, treating him like he was the most learned man in the world, the most gallant and benevolent and brilliant. It was exhausting.
The eggs were just barely cooked when he called out to me.
—Lenore, he said.
—Just a moment, darling. I have to get these eggs off the heat so the yolks don’t overcook. I know how you hate a powdery yolk.
—Yes, but I also don’t like it too wet.
—Of course.
I ran the eggs under cool water and began to peel them while they were still hot. My mother could touch the bottom of a boiling pan. She could hold anything without mitts. Indeed, her hands were callused, but I always suspected there was something else at work. Witchery.
I mashed the eggs between the tines of a fork. I added a tablespoon of mayonnaise and a teaspoon of horseradish sauce. I added smoked sea salt and freshly cracked black peppercorns.
As I approached Lenny, he finally looked below my waist.
—Lenore, my dear, did you spill something on yourself?
—Not exactly.
—What is that? he asked, pointing to my thighs. Lenore, is that blood?
—I lost our baby.
—Oh, dear.
—But it’s all right, I said, sitting beside him and taking his hand in mine. We’ll try again.
He nodded and looked all around the room. He wrung his hands as old men do.
—Was it painful, my love?
—Not too bad, I said.
—Sometimes it’s for the best, you know.
—You’re right, darling. You’re right about everything.
—Oh, Lenore. That’s kind of you. I’ve studied and read my whole life, my love. I come from a long line of wise men.