“You were dreaming there was a man in the room,” she says to me. She reaches out a hand to mine but I pull briskly away. “Just a bad dream, that’s all. It will all be clearer come morning.”
“I know what I saw,” I tell her, voice cracking. But her face is suddenly so pacific, so kind, and she asks if I’d like for her to walk me back to the carriage home so I don’t have to go alone. It’s dark out, she says. Hard to navigate the way. “But not to worry,” she tells me. “I know this yard like the back of my hand,” and she reaches for my arm to lead the way home. She winks at me and says, “And besides, I have a flashlight.” And there it is, in the pocket of her robe. She flicks it on as if this conversation is over, as if she’s put my worries to rest and now I can go home, feeling assured that there’s no man in this home. No man watching me.
But I yank my arm away. “Why are you hiding him from me?” I ask. My voice becomes elevated, high-pitched, defensive. “Why don’t you want me to see him? Why don’t you want me to know that he’s there?”
And then I let slip the one thought that’s put down roots in the back of my mind, that’s replaced all logical thought.
“Why are you keeping my father from me?” I scream.
Her face falls flat and she goes white, even whiter than she was before. She shakes her head, presses a hand to her mouth but says nothing. Nothing at first, before she carefully breathes out, treading lightly, “You’re quite sure you saw a man in there?”
My heart nearly sings in relief. She believes me. She believes me.
I nod vigorously.
“Perhaps you’re right then. Perhaps someone is there,” she says with concern as she draws back the door and lets me in. “Why don’t you go see,” she suggests.
I think of my father, so close within reach. I soar past Ms. Geissler on the staircase, taking the steps two at a time up to the second floor. There I stand beneath that little hatch that leads up to the third floor. I listen for footsteps at first, hearing nothing, but remembering that I’ve stood here before and heard something.
He was here that night. Standing above me. Was he trying to contact me, to get my attention? To let me know that he was here?
I reach for the cord and give it a tug. The ladder unfurls before me, unfolding into makeshift steps. Two of the steps are split. Another is missing, just as Ms. Geissler said.
She warns me, “The steps, Jessie. They’re not safe,” though I go anyway, clutching the hand railing, which is unstable at best. “Bring the flashlight with you,” she says, attempting to hand it to me. But I don’t take it.
“There’s a light,” I tell her. “I saw the light. I don’t need a flashlight,” but she tells me to take it anyway, as she gives it a shake. I take it only to appease her, tucking it under the crook of an arm.
I begin to climb. I move slowly, walking though I want to run. The fourth step gives on me, splintering, and I shriek.
“Jessie!” Ms. Geissler yells, asking if I’m okay.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I say, gripping the railing harder and pulling myself up and over the broken step.
Ms. Geissler makes no attempt to follow, but stands instead at the bottom of the stairs. She crosses her arms against her chest, watching as I go. She tells me to be careful. She tells me to go slow.
I reach the top step and hoist myself into the attic. The room is murky. Out the open windows, the sun is lost somewhere beneath the horizon. It’s still nighttime, and yet there’s a flush to the sky. Morning will be here soon.
I barely make out a lamp, the same lamp that for the past few nights radiated light. One of those old Tiffany-style lamps, with the stained-glass shade. But when I go to turn it on, nothing happens. The lamp is dead, the lightbulb burned out. I turn the knob around and around but still nothing happens. All I hear is the idle click that mimics my heartbeat.
I orbit the room, looking for him. I trip over things that I can’t see. I hold my breath and listen, but I hear nothing. “Hello?” I ask, more begging than inquisitive.
“Come out so I can see you,” I whisper to the man. My father. I tell him I know that he’s here. That I want to see him, to meet him. That I’ve been waiting my whole life. I take small steps around the room, using my hands as a guide. My heartbeat pounds in my ear as I hold my breath, listening for breath, for footsteps, for him. A game of Marco Polo.
“Marco,” I chant aloud to myself, but there’s no reply.
I reach for the flashlight Ms. Geissler gave me. I turn it on. It casts a meager glow around the room, not much but enough. The light bounces on the wall from the tremor of my hands.
What I find is a wall of cardboard bankers boxes—dozens of them—with holes chewed out. Rodent droppings and old building supplies. Gallons of paint, boards of hardwood, boxes of screws and nails.
A makeshift nest—clumps of twigs and leaves—is nestled into the corner of the attic, and on it, there’s some hairless and fetal-looking thing that looks like it’s just climbed out of its mother’s womb. A mother squirrel stands over her baby, scowling at me.
What I don’t find is a four-poster bed. A white comforter. A cord dangling from the ceiling. A man. None of those things are here. It’s just a ratty and dilapidated attic inhabited by squirrels, just as Ms. Geissler has said.
I feel like I can’t breathe. The pain in my chest is immense, in my arm, my jaw, my abdomen. The room is empty, though as sure as I live and breathe, I saw a man here.
I stand looking out the window and toward the carriage home. I don’t know how long I stand there, staring, thinking that maybe he will appear. That somehow we’ll have swapped places. But he never appears.
I make my way back down the steps, where Ms. Geissler stands waiting for me. On her face is a complacent look. An I told you so look.
“Find what you were looking for?” she asks, though I can’t speak. A lump forms in my throat, but I will not cry. I cannot cry.
“I told you, Jessie,” she gloats, and I know then that she did this only to humor me. “There is no man there. Squirrels. Only squirrels.” And then she thrusts the ladder back up so that the squirrels can’t take over the rest of her home.
She shows me the door, but before closing it on me, she first asks, “Did you ever think, Jessie, that you’re only seeing what you want to see? You need help.” She all but pushes me out of her house and slams the door behind me. I hear the sound of a lock clicking shut.
The porch light goes off, and once again I am submerged in darkness.
I set myself down on the top porch step, feeling exhausted. My body aches from the lack of sleep, from ten nights of my mind depriving me of sleep. It’s an insidious way to die, I think, from lack of sleep because there is nothing gory about it, no blood, no guts, and yet the effects are just as gruesome. I know because I’m living it.
As the sun begins to rise on the eleventh day, it’s only a matter of time until I die.
This is what it feels like knowing you’re about to die.
This is what Mom must have felt like knowing she would die.
I sit on the stoop and talk to myself, blathering about what’s happening to me, hoping to make sense of it, but striking out. I can’t make sense of it. I count to ten to make sure I can still do it, losing track at number six. I cry, a proper cry, shoulders heaving, the first in a long time. My heart, my head, everything hurts. I fold over sideways on the porch step, rolling up into the fetal position, pulling my knees into my chest, wondering if this is where I’ll die.
*
All at once I look up and have no clue where I am.
By now the sun is just barely beginning to rise. It turns the world from black to gray. One by one people appear on the street before me. Joggers, early-morning commuters.