“You just found it today? Right now? Just a few minutes ago?”
But she shakes her head no. “It was a day or two ago,” and then she sighs and says, “It’s been a long week. A really long week,” as if that should explain to me why it’s taken her a day or two to return Esther’s purse. “I live nearby,” she says. “It’s on the way.” She tells me that Jane really should be more careful with her purse, “Carrying that much cash around,” and I know two things then: number one, this lady riffled through Esther’s purse, and secondly, when I look inside, I’m going to find fifteen hundred dollars in there.
Esther took the money out of the ATM, but she never used it. She didn’t hire some hit man to off me. She isn’t vacationing in Punta Cana, sipping a strawberry daiquiri.
Where is Esther?
“How do you know where we live?” I ask suddenly as we stand there on the front stoop, being enveloped by the cold autumn air.
“It’s on her driver’s license,” she tells me. “I wasn’t snooping,” she swears before I have a chance to ask, taking on a tone that is rueful and defensive all at the same time. She was snooping. “I was just trying to return the purse. You’ll give it to her? To Jane?” this lady asks, and I say, “Oh, yes. Of course,” and then I say my goodbyes, let myself into the building and gently close the door.
*
Esther’s and my apartment is empty when I step inside, but it smells like Esther: the scent of her cooking, the fragrance of her peony body mist. I’m struck with a wave of nostalgia.
I meander to her doorway and, as I cross the threshold into Esther’s refrigerator-box room, I see the Dalmatian Molly floating dead at the bottom of the fish tank. I drift to the side of the tank, flipping off the tank light so that I can’t see the poor dead fish on the hot-pink rocks, the swoosh of the filter making it look like she’s breathing when I’m certain she’s not. Her body lies flaccid, turning white—a sign of rot—and as I tap on the side of the glass, she doesn’t move. She’s dead. Esther’s fish is dead. How long has she been dead?
I mouth the words, Sorry, Fishy. I’m not sure what I did, but I’m sure I did something wrong.
I kindle a third search of the apartment, retracing every step I’ve already made twice. I’m growing desperate. I am desperate. There must be something more here, something I’ve overlooked. I look through Esther’s desk and dresser drawers again; I peer inside her closet. I grope at items at random and throw them to the floor, not worrying whether or not I make a mess. I crinkle her papers; I tug the drawers right off the IKEA desk, and search for a false bottom drawer. I breathe heavily, working hard.
There’s nothing there.
I make a mess of Esther’s room; I knock her pencil cup to the ground, angry and rash. I flip through the stack of textbooks and then toss them aside one by one, where they fall to the hardwood floors, making a clamorous noise. Down below, Mrs. Budny is likely two seconds away from reaching for her sponge mop, but I don’t care.
My cell phone rings—Ben, I’m sure, finally returning my call—but I can’t be slowed down. I need to find Esther. When I get to the bottom of the textbook pile, I rise to my feet and cross the room, stepping with dirty shoes on Esther’s aqua throw and orange duvet, leaving dusty footprints on the fabric, though as I do, I’m reminded of Esther’s words: The dill weed goes here. And the peanut flour goes here.
She wouldn’t like this one bit.
“There’s nothing here,” I say to myself out loud, hands held up in defeat.
I attack the living room and the kitchen with a vengeance, canvassing every drawer, every piece of mismatched furniture, behind picture frames, under the rug. I slip a hand behind the sofa cushions and search there, too; I knock on the drywall and listen for somewhere hollow, a secret hiding spot. I check inside the air return for a stash of goodies, but still, there’s nothing there. Just dust and dirt and dead air.
And then I have an idea, some place I haven’t yet searched. I climb on top of the kitchen cabinets and search that half-inch gap between the cabinets for a hideaway, a last-ditch attempt at finding some clue, any kind of clue. Anything. I trek dirty footprints across the Formica countertop but I don’t care.
But still, there’s nothing there.
It’s from up on top of the countertop that I see it, my face red and sweaty from romping around the apartment on another fruitless mission, my heart beating quickly, my breathing heavy and uncontrolled. I’m rolling my sweater sleeves to my elbows when I catch sight of the light blue item on the floor, sitting there behind the door, right where I left it.
Esther’s purse.
I leap from the countertop—my knees unleashing a groan—and run to the purse. How is it possible that I didn’t think to look inside her purse? Turning it upside down, I toss its contents out on the floor, shaking the purse to make sure I get everything out. I set it aside, but not before zipping and unzipping the pockets, feeling the lining for a secret compartment. But the only thing that’s left behind is a stick of gum.
This is what I find spilled across the wooden floors of our apartment: a sewing kit, a headband, a little mirror, three tampons, some Altoids, Esther’s light blue quilted wallet—to match the light blue quilted purse—tissues, a book and some keys. A key for the main walk-up door, a key for our apartment door, a padlock key for her storage unit.
And one more typed sheet of notebook paper, folded into thirds.
Addressed to My Dearest, and signed, All my love, EV.
Alex
I’m the first one at the library when it opens for the day. I’m waiting outside at the top of a small stairway, beside the white exterior columns, when the librarian unlocks the door. She takes her time inserting the key in the lock, and then checks her watch to be certain it’s nine o’clock. Nine o’clock and not a moment before. And then she opens the door as I breeze past inhaling her potent hair spray, and she says to me, “First one here,” as if that wasn’t already obvious, the fact that I was the first one here, the only one here. I mutter a quick, Yup, and then hurry on, to one of the computer terminals, which I haven’t bothered to reserve in advance. That thought never even crossed my mind. Though I’m the only one here, the librarian tracks me down, anyway, scanning my library card because, as she says, Rules are rules. And I’ve already broken one of the twenty-seven rules about using the library’s computer terminals. I watch as she gives me a disapproving look and then withdraws slowly from view. The only people at the library this morning are the other librarians, two older women who file carts worth of returned books. They disappear into the stacks making the books all alphabetical and orderly so that later people can come and muss it all up. It must drive them insane.
I don’t have a lot of information on which to go, but I do know that the cemetery plot where Genevieve was supposed to be buried...it’s empty. I try hard to exhume from memory the stories of little five-year-old Genevieve before she drowned in that bathtub. I wasn’t born yet; I wasn’t even a blip on the radar. To me she was always a ghost. She was never a child, but rather the purported specter in the window of the home across the street, a wraith in white wafting from room to room, calling for her mother. But to others she was a child once.