Mud Vein

  I opened my MacBook and stared at the cursor. One hour, ten minutes, a day … I’m not sure how much time passed. The doorbell rang, jarring me. When did I come in here? I felt stiff as I stood up. A long time. I walked down the stairs and stopped in front of the door. Every one of my movements was robotic and forced. I could see Doctor Asterholder’s car through the peephole; charcoal sitting atop my wet, brick driveway. I opened the door and he blinked at me like this was normal—him being on my doorstep. He had both arms around paper bags loaded to the brim with groceries. He brought me groceries.

  “Why are you here?”

  “Because you are.” He stepped passed me and walked to the kitchen without my permission. I stood frozen for several minutes, looking at his car. It was drizzling outside, the sky covered in a thick fog that hung over the trees likes a burial shroud. When I finally closed the door, I was shivering.

  “Doctor Asterholder,” I said, walking into the kitchen. My kitchen. He was unpacking things on my counter: cans of tomato paste, boxes of rigatoni, bright yellow bananas and clear cartons of berries.

  “Isaac,” he corrected me.

  “Doctor Asterholder. I appreciate … I … but—”

  “Did you eat today?”

  He fished his soggy business card out of the sink and held it between two fingers. Not knowing what else to do, I wandered over to my barstool and took a seat. I wasn’t used to this sort of aggression. People gave me space, left me alone. Even if I asked them not to—which was rare. I didn’t want to be anyone’s project and I definitely didn’t want this man’s pity. But for the moment I had no words.

  I watched him open bottles and chop things. He took out his phone and set it on the counter and asked me if I minded. When I shook my head, he put it on. Her voice was raspy. It had both an old and new feel to it, innovative, classic.

  I asked him who she was and he told me, “Julia Stone.” It was a literary name. I liked it. He played her entire album, tossing things into a pot he found by himself. The house was dark aside from the kitchen light he stood underneath. It felt quaint, like a life that didn’t belong to me, but I enjoyed watching. When was the last time I had someone over? Not since I bought the house. That was three years ago. There was a long window above my sink that stretched the length of the room. My appliances were all on the same wall, so no matter what you were doing you had a panoramic view of the lake. Sometimes when I was washing dishes I’d get so caught up looking outside, my hand would still and the water would turn cold before I realized that I’d been staring for fifteen minutes.

  I saw him peering into the darkness as he stood at the stove. The lights from the houses floated like fireflies in ink behind him. I let my eyes leave him and I watched the darkness instead. The darkness comforted me.

  “Senna?” I jumped.

  Isaac was next to me. He put a placemat and utensils in front of me, along with a bowl of steaming food, and a glass of something bubbly. I never even noticed.

  “Soda,” he said, when he saw me looking. “My vice.”

  “I’m not hungry,” I said pushing the bowl away.

  He pushed it back and tapped his forefinger on the counter. “You haven’t eaten in three days.”

  “Why do you care?” It came out harsher than I intended. Everything I said did.

  I watched his face for a lie, but he just shrugged.

  “It’s who I am.”

  I ate his soup. Then he made himself comfortable on my couch and went to sleep. In his clothes. I stood on the stairs and watched him for a long time, his socked feet sticking out of the bottom of the blanket he was using. Eventually I crawled into my bed. I reached out before I closed my eyes, and touched the book on the nightstand. Just the cover.

  He came every night. Sometimes as early as three o’ clock in the afternoon, sometimes as late as nine. It was alarming how quickly a person could acquiesce to something—something like a stranger in your house, sleeping and scooping grounds into your Mr. Coffee. When he started buying groceries and cooking meals it felt permanent. Like I suddenly had a roommate or a family member I never signed up for. But on the nights he came late I found myself anxious, pacing the hallways in three pairs of socks, unable to stay in one room for more than a few seconds before I moved to the next. The worst part was, when he arrived, I immediately retreated to my bedroom to hide. None of the relief I felt at seeing the lights of his car reflected through my windows was allowed to show. It was cold, but it was survival. I wanted to ask him why he was late. Was it surgery? Did they make it? But I didn’t dare.

  Every morning I woke up to find another of his business cards on the counter. I stopped throwing them away after a few days and let them pile up near the fruit bowl. The fruit bowl that was always filled with fruit, because he bought it and put it there: red and green apples, yellow pears, the occasional fuzzy kiwi. We didn’t speak much. It was a silent relationship, which I was fine with. He fed me and I said thank you, then he went to sleep on my couch. I started to wonder how well I’d be sleeping if he wasn’t guarding the door. If I’d sleep at all. The couch was short—too short for his six-foot frame; it was the smaller of the two that I owned. One day while he was at the hospital I took a break from staring at the fire to push the longer couch in front of the door. I left him a better pillow and a warmer blanket.

  There was one particular night that he didn’t arrive until almost eleven. I’d given up on him coming altogether, thinking our strange relationship had finally run its course. I was on my way up the stairs when I heard a quiet knock on the door. Just a rap rap rap. It could have been a gust of wind it was so light. But in my hope I heard it. He didn’t look at me when I opened the door. Or wouldn’t. Or couldn’t. He seemed to be finding my pavers particularly interesting, and then the spot just above my left shoulder. He had dark crescents under his eyes, two hollow moons cradling his lashes. It would have been a hard call to decide who looked worse—me in my layers of clothing or Isaac with his droopy shoulders. We both looked beat up.

  I tried to pretend I wasn’t watching him as he walked to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. When he came out, the top two buttons of his shirt were undone and his sleeves were rolled to his elbows. He never brought a change of clothes. He slept in what he wore and left early in the morning, presumably to go home and shower. I didn’t know where he lived, how old he was, or where he went to medical school. All the things you found out by asking questions. I did know that he drove a hybrid. He wore aftershave that smelled like chai tea spilled on old leather. Three times a week he grocery shopped. Always paper bags; most of Washington is composed of people trying to save the planet, one Coke can at a time. I always chose plastic just to be defiant. Now I had mounds of paper grocery bags stacked on my pantry floor, all neatly folded. He’d started wheeling the green recycling can to the curb on Thursdays. I was officially and unwillingly part of the green people cult. On Sundays he’d steal my neighbor’s paper. It’s the only thing I really liked about him.

  Isaac opened the fridge and stared inside, one hand rubbing the back of his neck.

  “There’s nothing here,” he said. “Let’s go out for dinner.” Not what I was expecting.

  I immediately felt like I couldn’t breathe. I backed up until my heels were pressing against the stairs. I hadn’t left the house in twenty-two days. I was afraid. Afraid that nothing would be the same, afraid that everything would be the same. Afraid of this man who I didn’t know, and who was speaking to me with so much familiarity. Let’s go out to dinner. Like we did this all the time. He didn’t know anything. Not about me, at least.

  “Don’t run,” he said, coming to stand in the spot where the kitchen met the living room. “You haven’t left the house in three weeks. It’s just dinner.”

  “Get out,” I said, pointing to the door. He didn’t move.

  “I won’t let anything happen to you, Senna.”

  The silence that followed was so loud that I could hear my faucet dripping, my
heart beating, the scratchy feet of fear as it crawled out of my pores.

  Thirty seconds, two minutes, one minute, five. I don’t know how long we stood there in a silent standoff. He hadn’t really said my name since the night he found me outside. We’d been two strangers. Now that he’d said it, it made everything feel real. This is really happening, I thought. All of it.

  He moved in for the kill. “We’ll walk to the car,” he said. “I’ll open the door for you, because that’s what I do. We will drive to a great Greek place. Best gyros you’ve ever tasted-open twenty-four hours. You get to choose the music in the car. I’ll open your door, we’ll go inside, get a table by the window. We want the table by the window because the restaurant is across the street from a gym, and the gym is next door to a doughnut shop. And we’ll want to count how many gym goers stop for doughnuts after they work out. We’ll talk or we can just watch the doughnut shop. Whatever you want. But you have to leave the house, Senna. And I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Please.”

  I was shaking by the time he finished. So violently I had to sit down on the bottom stair, my fingernails bending against the wood. That meant I was considering what he was saying. Actually thinking about leaving the house, wanting to taste the gyros … see the doughnut shop. But not just that, there was something in his voice. He needed to do this. When I looked up, Isaac Asterholder was still where he was. Waiting.

  “Okay,” I said. It wasn’t like me, but everything had changed. And if he kept showing up for me, I could show up for him. Just this once.

  It was raining. I liked the cover that rain provided. It protected you from the hard brutality of the sun. It brought things to life, made them flourish. I was born in the desert where the sun and my father almost killed me. I lived in Washington because of the rain, because of how it made my life feel washed of my past. I stared out the window until Isaac handed me his iPod. It was beat-up looking. Well loved.

  He had the Finding Neverland soundtrack. I pressed play, and we drove without words, from our lips or from our music.

  The restaurant was called Olive and smelled like onions and lamb. We sat by the window, just as Isaac promised, and ordered gyros. Neither of us spoke. It was enough to be out among the living. We watched people amble on the sidewalk across the street. Gym goers and doughnut shop goers, and just as he promised, sometimes they were one and the same. The shop was called The Doughnut Hole. It had a large picture of a pink frosted doughnut on the storefront with an arrow pointing to the hole in the center. There was a large flashing blue sign that said, Open 24/7. People in the city didn’t sleep. I should live there.

  Some people had a stronger will than others, they only looked lovingly into The Doughnut Hole’s window before racing to their cars. Their cars were mostly hybrids. Generally, hybrid drivers had a nose in the air to things that weren’t good for them. But most couldn’t resist the temptation. It seemed like a cruel joke, really. I counted twelve people who resisted the call to be healthy and followed the smell of white flour and sticky glaze. I liked those people better—the hypocrites. I could relate.

  When the meal was over, Isaac slipped his credit card out of his wallet.

  “No,” I said. “Let me…”

  He looked ready to kick up a fuss. Some men don’t like female gendered credit cards. I gave him a fierce look, and after about five seconds he tucked his wallet back into his back pant pocket. I handed over my card. It was a power move and I’d won—or he’d let me. It’s good to have a little power either way. When he saw me staring across the street at the doughnut shop, he asked if I wanted one. I nodded.

  He led me to the store and bought a half dozen. When he handed me the bag it was hot … greasy. My mouth started to water.

  I ate one as he drove me home and we listened to the rest of the Finding Neverland soundtrack. I didn’t even like doughnuts; I just wanted to see what turned all of those people into hypocrites.

  When we pulled into my driveway I wasn’t sure if he was going to come in or leave me at the door. The rules changed tonight. I willingly went somewhere with him. It felt datish or, at the very least, friendish. But when I opened the front door he followed me inside and turned the deadbolt. I was headed up the stairs when I heard his voice.

  “I lost a patient today.” I stopped on the fourth stair, but I didn’t turn around. I should have. Something like that was worth turning around for. His voice was clotted. “She was only sixteen. She coded on the table. We couldn’t bring her back.”

  My heart was racing. I gripped the banister until the veins in my hands popped and I thought the wood was going to snap beneath the pressure.

  I waited for him to say more, and when he didn’t I climbed the rest of the stairs. Once I was in my bedroom I shut the door and leaned with my back against it. Almost as quickly I turned around and pressed my ear against the wood. I couldn’t hear any movement. I took seven reverse steps up until the backs of my knees were touching the bed, then I spread my arms wide and fell backwards.

  When I was seven my mother left my father. She also left me, but mostly she left my father. She told me that before she carried her two suitcases out the front door and climbed in the cab. I have to do this for myself. He’s killing me slowly. I’m not leaving you, I’m leaving him.

  I never had the courage to ask her why she wasn’t taking me. I watched her leave from the living room window with my hands pressed against the glass in a silent STOP. Her parting words to me had been, You’ll feel me in the fall backwards. She’d kissed me on the mouth and walked out.

  I never saw her again. I never stopped trying to figure out what she meant. My mother had been a writer, one of the obscure artsy types who surround themselves with color and sound. She published two novels in the late seventies and then married my father, who she claimed sucked all the creativity out of her. Sometimes I felt like I became a writer just to make her see me. Consequently, I was very good at it. I’d yet to feel her in the fall backwards.

  I stared at the ceiling and wondered what it would feel like to have someone’s life in your hands, and then to watch that life slip away like Isaac had. And when had I started to call him Isaac? I felt myself drifting off and I closed my eyes, welcoming it. When I woke up, I was screaming.

  Someone was holding me down, I writhed left and then right to get away. I screamed again and I felt hot breath on my face and neck. A crash and my bedroom door swung open. Thank God! Someone is here to help me. And that’s when I realized that I was alone, lying in the residue of a dream. No one was here. No one was attacking me. Isaac leaned over where I lay, saying my name. I could hear myself screaming and I was so ashamed. I squeezed my eyes closed, but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t make it go away—the feel of cruel, relentless hands on my body, tearing, pressing. I screamed louder until my voice grew fingernails and tore into my throat.

  “Senna,” he said, and I don’t know how I heard him above the noise I was making, “I’m going to touch you.”

  I didn’t fight as he climbed in bed behind me, and stretched both of his legs on either side of mine. Then he pulled me back until I was leaning against his chest, and wrapped both arms around my torso. My hands were curled into fists as I screamed. The only way to deal with the pain was to move, so I rocked back and forth and he rocked with me. His arms anchored me to what was real, but I was still halfway in the dream. He said my name. “Senna.”

  The sound of his voice, the tone, calmed me a little. His voice was a slow thunder.

  “When I was a little boy, I had a red bike,” he said. I had to stop screaming to hear him. “Every night when I went to bed I begged God to give my bike wings so that in the morning, I could fly away. Every morning I’d crawl out of bed and run straight to the garage to see if he answered my prayers. I still have the bike. It’s more rusted then red now. But I still check. Every day.”

  I stopped rocking.

  I was still shaking, but the pressure of his arms wrapped around my torso caused the tremb
ling to taper off.

  I fell asleep in a stranger’s arms, and I was not afraid.

  Isaac breathed like he had trust. He pulled in his air steady and deep and exhaled it like a sigh. I wished I could be like that. But that was all gone. I listened to him for a long time, time enough for the sun to come up and try to press through the clouds. The clouds won, in Washington they always won. I was still wrapped in him, leaning against his chest—this man I didn’t know. I wanted to stretch my muscles, but I stayed still because there was something good about this. His hands were draped across my abdomen. I studied them since my eyes were the only things I dared move. They were average looking hands, but I knew that the twenty-seven bones in each of this man’s hands were exceptional. They were surrounded by muscle and tissue and nerves that together saved human life with their dexterity and precision. Hands could bruise or they could fix. His hands fixed. Eventually, his breathing lightened and I knew he was awake. It felt like a standoff to see who would make the first move. His arms left my body, and I crawled forward and stepped out of bed. I didn’t look at him as I walked to the bathroom. I washed my face and took two aspirin for my headache. When I came out he was gone. I counted the cards on the counter. He didn’t leave one that day.