Mud Vein

  “Your address?” he asked. I pulled my eyes away from the rain.

  “1226 Atkinson Drive.” His hand hovered over the GPS before moving back to the steering wheel.

  “The stone house? On the hill—with the vines on the chimney?”

  I nod. My house was noticeable from all across the lake, but he must live near if he’d seen it close enough to know about the vines.

  “I live in the area,” he said a moment later. “It’s a beautiful house.”

  “Yes,” I said absently. I suddenly felt cold. I lifted my hands to my arms to catch the goose bumps, and he turned up the heat without me asking. I saw a family crossing the parking lot, each with an armful of presents. All four of them were wearing Christmas hats, from the toddler to the beer-bellied father. They looked hopeful.

  “Why aren’t you with your family on Christmas?” I asked him.

  He pulled out of the lot and turned onto the street. It was one o’clock on Christmas Day so, for once, there was no traffic.

  “I moved here from Raleigh two months ago. My family is back East. I couldn’t get enough time off to go see them. Plus hospitals are short staffed on Christmas. I was scheduled to come in later today.”

  I looked out the window again.

  There was silence for a few miles, and then I said, “I didn’t scream … maybe if I’d screamed—”

  “You were in the woods, and it was Christmas morning. There was no one to hear you.”

  “But I could have tried. Why didn’t I try?”

  Dr. Asterholder looked at me. We were at a light, so he could. “Why didn’t I get there sooner? Just ten minutes and I could have saved you…”

  My shock drew me out. For a minute I was a different Senna. Appalled, I said, “It’s not your fault.”

  The light turned green, the truck ahead of us pulled forward. Before Dr. Isaac Asterholder put his foot on the gas, he said, “It’s not yours either.”

  The drive from the hospital to my house is roughly ten minutes. There are three traffic lights, a brief stint on the highway, and a steep, winding hill that makes even the toughest car have bad labor pains. Chopin was playing softly from the speakers as the doctor drove me home the rest of the way in silence. His car interior was cream; soothing. He pulled into my driveway and immediately got out to open my door. I had to remind myself to move, to walk, to put my keys into the lock. It all took conscious effort, as if I was controlling my limbs from outside my body—a puppet master and a puppet at the same time. And maybe I was not in my body. Maybe the real me kept running on that trail, and what he grabbed was a different part. Maybe you could detach from the ugly things that happened to you. But even as I opened the door I knew it wasn’t true. I felt too much fear.

  “Do you want me to check the house?” Dr. Asterholder asked. His eyes moved past me into the foyer. I looked at him, grateful for the suggestion and also afraid of letting him in. In all respects, he was the man who saved me, yet I was still looking at him like he could attack me at any minute. He seemed to sense that. I cast my own glance into the darkness behind me, and suddenly felt too afraid to even flick on the light switch. What would be there? The man who raped me?

  “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” He took a voluntary step back, away from me and the house. “I’m fine with just dropping you off.”

  “Wait,” I said. I was ashamed of my voice, swollen with panic. “Please check.” It took everything for me to say that, to ask for help. He nodded. I stepped aside to let him in. When you allow someone into your house to check for the boogey man, you are unwittingly letting him into your life as well.

  I waited on a barstool in my kitchen while he inspected the rooms. I could hear him moving around from the bedrooms to the bathrooms, then to my office, which hung over the kitchen. You are in shock, I told myself. He checked each window and door. When he finished he pulled out a card from his wallet and slid it on the counter toward me.

  “Call me anytime you need me. My house is a mile away. I’d like to check on you tomorrow, if that’s okay.”

  I nodded.

  “Do you have someone that can come over? Stay with you tonight?”

  I hesitated. I didn’t want to tell him that I didn’t.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said.

  When he was gone, I pushed the sofa to the front door and wedged it between the jamb and the wall. It was no more a barrier against someone intruding than my small, ineffective fists, but it made me feel better. I undressed in the foyer, kicking off the lightweight pants and shirt the nurse gave me at the hospital after she bagged mine for evidence. Naked, I carried them to the fireplace, setting them on the floor next to me as I opened the grate and arranged the logs. I lit a fire and waited until it was hot and hungry. Then I threw everything in, and watched the worst day of my life burn.

  Carrying a Brillo pad and a half-full jug of bleach to the downstairs bathroom, I turned the water to the hottest setting. The bathroom filled with steam. When the mirrors were hazed, and I couldn’t see myself, I climbed into the shower and watched my skin turn red. I scrubbed my body until my skin bled and the water turned pink around my feet. Screwing the cap off the bleach, I lifted it above my shoulders, and poured. I cried out and had to hold myself up while I did it again. Then I lay on the floor with my knees spread apart and my hips raised, and poured it into my body. They’d given me a pill, told me it would take care of an unwanted pregnancy. Just in case, the nurse said. But, I wanted to kill everything he touched—every skin cell. I needed to make sure there was nothing left of him on any part of me. I walked naked to the kitchen and pulled a knife from the block I kept next to the fridge. Using the tip, I ran it up and down the inside of my arm, tracing my favorite vein. Too many windows; my house had too many ways to break in. What if he’d been watching me? If he knew where I lived?

  I pierced the skin with that last thought and dragged the tip about two inches. I watched the blood trickle down my arm, mesmerized by the sight. When my doorbell rang, the knife clattered to the floor.

  I was so afraid, I couldn’t move. It rang again. Grabbing a dishtowel I held it over the cut on my arm and looked toward the door. If they were here to hurt me, they probably wouldn’t ring the doorbell. I grabbed for laundry basket that was resting on my kitchen counter, pulling out a clean t-shirt and jeans. They dragged stubbornly over my damp skin as I rushed to put them on. I took the knife with me. I had to push the couch aside to reach the door. When I looked through the peep hole, my hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold the knife. What I saw was Doctor Asterholder, in different clothes.

  I opened the deadbolt and swung the door wide. Wider than a woman who’d experienced my day should have. I wouldn’t have even done that before what happened today. We stared at each other for a good thirty seconds, before his eyes found the dishtowel and my fresh blood.

  “What did you do?”

  I stared at him blankly. I couldn’t seem to speak; it was like I’d forgotten how. He grabbed my arm and ripped the cloth from the wound. It was then I realized he thought I was trying to kill myself.

  “It’s not—it’s not in the right spot,” I said. “It’s not like that.” He was blinking rapidly when he looked up from the cut.

  “Come,” he said. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

  I followed him into the kitchen and slid onto a barstool, not quite sure what was happening. He took my arm, more gently this time, and turned it over, peeling back the dishrag.

  “Bandages? Antiseptic?”

  “Upstairs bathroom, under the sink.”

  He left to retrieve my little first-aid kit and came back with it about two minutes later.

  I only realized I was still clutching the knife when he gently pried it from my fingers and set it on the counter.

  He didn’t speak as he cleaned and bandaged my wound. I watched his hands work. His fingers were deft and agile.

  “It won’t need stitches,” he said. “Flesh wound. But, keep it clea
n.”

  His eyes traced the rawness on my exposed skin, left from the Brillo pad.

  “Senna,” he said. “There are people, support groups—”

  I cut him off. “No.”

  “Okay.” He nodded. It reminded me of the way my shrink used to say okay, like it was a word you swallowed and digested instead of one you spoke. Somehow, from him, it seemed less condescending.

  “Why are you here?”

  He hesitated briefly then said, “Because you are.”

  I didn’t understand what he meant. My thoughts were so contorted, choppy. I couldn’t seem to…

  “Go to bed. I’ll sleep right there.” He pointed to the couch, still angled across the front door.

  I nodded. You’re in shock, I told myself again. You’re letting a stranger sleep on your couch.

  I was too tired to over think it. I went upstairs and locked the door to my bedroom. It still didn’t feel safe. Picking up my pillow and blanket, I carried them to my bathroom, locked that door, too, and lay down on the mat. My sleep was that of a woman who had just been raped.

  I woke up and stared at my ceiling. Something was wrong … something … but I couldn’t figure out what it was. A weight pressed down on my chest. The kind that comes when you feel dread, but you can’t quite place your finger on why. Five minutes, twenty minutes, two minutes, seven minutes, an hour. I have no idea how long I lay like that, staring up at the ceiling … not thinking. Then I rolled onto my side and a nurse’s word came back to me: discomfort. Yes, I felt discomforted. Why? Because I was raped. My mind recoiled. I’d once seen a neighbor boy pour salt on a snail. I’d watched in horror as its tiny body disintegrated on the pavement. I’d run home crying, asking my mother why something we seasoned our food with had the power to kill a snail. She’d told me that salt absorbs all of the water that their bodies are made of, so they essentially dry out or suffocate because they can’t breathe. That’s what I felt like. Everything had changed in a day. I didn’t want to acknowledge it, but it was there—between my legs, in my mind … oh God, on my couch. Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. I rolled over, reaching for the inhaler in my nightstand and knocking the lamp over. It crashed to the floor as I struggled to sit up. When had I even come back to my bed? I’d gone to sleep in the bathroom, on the floor. A second later, Dr Asterholder came crashing through my bedroom door. He looked from me to the lamp, then back to me again. “Where is it?” he barked. I pointed, and he was across the room in two steps. I watched him rip open the drawer and rummage around until he found it. I grabbed it from his hand, biting down on the spacer and feeling the albuterol fill my lungs a second later. He waited until I’d caught my breath to pick up the lamp. I was embarrassed. Not just about the asthma attack, but about the night before. That I’d let him stay.

  “Are you all right?”

  I nodded without looking at him.

  “From the asthma?”

  Yes. As if sensing my discomfort, he took leave of my room, closing the door behind him. It jerked into place as if it didn’t sit against the seam so well anymore. I’d locked the door the night before, and he’d managed to get in with a hard shove of his shoulder. That didn’t make me feel very good.

  I showered again, this time forgoing the Brillo pad for a bar of plain, white, soap with a bird cut delicately into its skin. The bird irritated me, so I scratched it away with my fingernail. My skin, still fresh and pink from the night before, tingled under the hot water. You’re fine, Senna, I told myself. You’re not the only one this has happened to. I dried off, patting my tender skin, and stopped to look at myself in the mirror. I looked different. Though I couldn’t put my finger on how. Maybe less soul. When I was a child my mother would tell me that people lost soul in two ways: someone could take it from you, or you’d surrender it willingly.

  You’re dead, I thought. My eyes said it was true. I dressed, covering every inch of my body in clothing. I wore so many layers someone would have to cut me out of them to get to my body. Then I walked downstairs, flinching at the discomfort between my legs. I found him in my kitchen sitting on a barstool and reading the paper. He had brewed coffee and was sipping out of my favorite mug. I don’t even get the paper. I hoped he stole it from my neighbors; I hated them.

  “Hello,” he said, setting his mug down. “I hope you don’t mind.” He gestured to the coffee setup and I shook my head. He got up and poured me a mug. “Milk? Sugar?”

  “Neither,” I said. I didn’t want coffee but I took it when he handed it to me. He was careful not to touch me, not to get too close. I took a tentative sip and set my mug down. This was awkward. Like the morning after a one night stand when no one knows where to stand and what to say, and where their underwear is.

  “What type of doctor are you?”

  “I’m a surgeon.”

  That’s about as far as I went with questions. He stood up and carried his mug to the sink. I watched him rinse it and place it upside down in the draining rack.

  “I have to get to the hospital.”

  I stared at him, unsure why he was telling me this. Were we a team now? Was he coming back?

  He pulled out another card and set it on the counter. “If you need me.”

  I looked at the card, plain white card stock with block lettering, then back to his face.

  “I won’t.”

  I spent the rest of the day on my back porch, staring at Lake Washington. I drank the same cup of coffee Dr. Asterholder handed me before he left. It stopped being hot a long time ago, but I cradled it between both of my hands like I was using it for heat. It was an act, a piece of body language that I’d learned to imitate. Hell itself could unfurl in front of me, and chances are I wouldn’t feel it.

  I didn’t have thought. I saw things with my eyes and my brain processed the colors and shapes without matching them to feelings: water, boats, sky and trees, plump loons and grebes that glided over the water. My eyes traced everything, across the lake and in my yard. The heaviness in my chest kept pressing. I didn’t acknowledge it. The sun set early in Washington; by four-thirty it was dark and there was nothing left to look at but the tiny lights from houses across the water. Christmas lights that would be stripped down soon. My eyes hurt. I heard the doorbell, but I was unable to stand up and answer it. They’d go away eventually, they usually did. They always did.

  I felt pressure on my upper arms. I looked down and saw hands gripping me. Hands, as if there were no body attached to them. Solitary hands. Something snapped and I started screaming.

  “Senna! … Senna!”

  I heard a voice. It was a clogged sound, like words said through a mouthful of cheese. My head rolled back and suddenly I realized that someone was shaking me.

  I saw his face. He touched a finger to the pulse on my neck.

  “I’m here. Feel me. See me.” He grabbed my face and held it between his hands, forcing me to look at him.

  “Hush … hush,” he said. “You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

  I wanted to laugh, but I was too busy screaming. Who is safe? No one. There is too much bad, too much evil in the world to ever be safe.

  He wrestled me into what must have been a hug. His arms encircled my body, my face was pressed against his shoulder. Five years, ten years, one year, seven—how long had it been since I was hugged? I didn’t know this man, but I did. He was a doctor. He helped me. He spent the night on my couch so I wouldn’t be alone. He broke down my bedroom door to get my inhaler.

  I heard him shushing me like a child. I clung to him—a solid body in the darkness. I was seeing my attack as he held me … feeling the panic, the disbelief, the numbness all at once until they tangled together in a fray. I wailed, an ugly, guttural noise like a wounded animal. I don’t know how long I was like that.

  He took me inside. Picked me right up and carried me through the French doors and set me gently on the couch. I lay down and curled up, tucking my knees under my chin. He tossed a blanket over me and started a fire, then he disappeared
into the kitchen and I could hear him moving around. When he came back he made me sit up handing me a mug of something hot.

  “Tea,” he said. He had a few pieces of cheese and a slice of homemade bread on a plate. I’d made the bread on Christmas Eve. Before. I pushed the plate away, but took the tea. He watched me drink it from his haunches. It was sweet. He waited for me to finish and took the cup.

  “You need to eat.”

  I shook my head. “Why are you here?” My voice was raspy—too much screaming. My white streak dangled in front of my eye, I tucked it and looked at the flames.

  “Because you are.”

  I didn’t know what he meant. Did he feel responsible for me because he found me? I lay back down and curled up.

  He sat on the floor in front of the couch where I was lying, facing the fire. I closed my eyes and slept.

  When I woke he was gone. I sat up and stared around the room. Light was creeping in through the kitchen window, which meant I’d slept straight through the night. I had no reference for what time he carried me inside. I wrapped the blanket around my shoulders and walked barefoot to the kitchen. Had he taken off my shoes after he carried me inside? I didn’t remember. I might not have been wearing shoes. There was fresh coffee in the pot and a clean mug sitting next to it. I picked up the mug and underneath he had left another card. Clever. He’d written something along the bottom.

  Call me if you need anything. Eat something.

  I crumpled the card in my fist and tossed it in the sink.

  “I won’t,” I said out loud. I turned on the faucet and let the water smear the words.

  I took a shower. Got dressed. Started another fire. Stared at the fire. I added a log. I stared at the fire. Around four o’clock I wandered into my office and sat behind my desk. My office was the most sterile room in the house. Most authors filled their writing space with warmth and color, pictures that inspire, chairs that allow them to think. My office consisted of a black lacquered desk in the center of an all white room: white walls, white ceiling, white tile. I needed emptiness to think, a clear white canvas to paint on. The black desk grounded me. Otherwise I’d just float around in all the white. Things distracted me. Or maybe they complicated me. I didn’t like to live with color. I wasn’t always like that. I learned to survive better.