Don't You Cry(35)

I pass a theater on Clark Street where a satirical play has been gracing the stage. Esther has been dying to see it but I’ve refused to go. I like my shows with surround sound and popcorn, I told Esther at the time, weeks ago, when she’d asked if I’d join her for the play. Lots of popcorn, I said, spouting on and on about how live theater was lame.

Now I wish I’d just shut up and gone.

A group of artsy urbanites comes bounding down the steps of the theater and I quickly dig up a photo of Esther on my phone and thrust it into one man’s hand. “Have you seen her?” I ask with shaking hands. “Was this woman inside?”

The man shakes his head and returns my phone to me. He hasn’t seen Esther and I watch sadly as he and his pretentious friends turn and walk away, happy and laughing, talking about what a great time the play was, what a riot.

I wind my way up and down the quieting city streets, watching as they slowly become uninhabited as nighttime draws near, footsteps escaping off into every darkened direction. I pass the Catholic church where Esther sings in the choir, a huge neo-Gothic structure whose doors, even at this late hour, remain unlocked. I pull on the blackened handle and let myself inside, calling out quietly and yet hopelessly for Esther. “Esther,” I hiss, moving with stealth two steps in, knowing this was where she was supposed to be, this is where she was meant to be, when she was not sleeping in her bed.

But the church is empty and the only words that return to me are mine, my desperate plea for Esther echoing off the wood paneled walls. Esther is not here.

In time I know that I’ll have to return to the vacant apartment all alone, without Esther in tow, and that when I arrive, Esther will not be there waiting for me. Not tonight, anyway, though I take comfort in the fact that maybe Esther will be home tomorrow. Tomorrow will be forty-eight hours that she’s been gone, just like the 311 operator said. They usually come home in forty-eight to seventy-two hours. Tomorrow then, I tell myself. Tomorrow Esther will come home.

Maybe.

At home that night, I can’t sleep. Driven by insomnia, I slip quietly into Esther’s bedroom and flip on a light. For whatever reason, my feet lead me to the paper shredder on the floor. I remove the top and dump its contents to the hardwood floors and then stand back to assess the mess. Some of the ribbons are traditional white computer paper, while others are colored, green and blue. Yellow. Some are heavy, like cardstock, and others are sparse and thinning, like a receipt. But it’s the ribbons of glossy photo paper that catch my eye as I run my fingers over the smooth, sheeny surface, wondering who it’s a picture of, assuming it’s even a picture at all. I start plucking the shreds of photo paper from the rest, making a pile on the floor.

How long would it take me to sort the ribbons of paper out and tape them back together again? Would it even be possible? I don’t know, but I’m sure as heck going to try.





Alex

He walks with an abnormal gait. His footsteps are short, the weight of his body placed more on the heels of his feet rather than the soles or the toes. It isn’t overly evident, and yet it is unmissable as I trail Dr. Giles by a good twenty paces to keep from being discovered. I probably walk with a gait abnormality, too, as I creep warily down the street, hiding behind tall, fat oak trees any time he so much as breathes. I’ve got my cell in the palm of a hand, texting invisible digits onto the screen so I can play possum if he turns around and sees me. Though I’ve got the phone on vibrate to deflect the sound of any incoming calls.

Dr. Giles didn’t plan on walking home. He planned on driving in his car, a functional sedan parked in the driveway of the blue cottage where he keeps his office. Though a lot of people walk or ride bikes in these parts, even when the temperature drops to a meager forty-five degrees, that wasn’t the reason Dr. Giles walked home. The reason? The puncture holes in the tire of his car, rendering the tire flat. I watched from the street as he ran his hand over the gashes, as he stared at the flattened tire in dismay. Probably a slow leak thanks to a nail or a rock. Or maybe somebody slashed his tire. Who knows?

And so he turned and walked home, leaving the car behind.

Dr. Joshua Giles is a good-looking guy. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think so. Not that I’m into that kind of thing, but he just is. He’s a good-looking guy, and he knows it, too. That’s the worst part. That’s what makes me mad. He’s tall, maybe six foot two or six foot three. Dark hair and eyes, the kind that women seem to like. He wears trendy, thick, black-framed glasses that hide his kindhearted eyes. I wonder if they’re natural, those eyes, or if that’s something they teach you in shrink school. To have kind eyes. A sympathetic smile. A rhythmic, measured nod. A solid handshake. I’m guessing it’s all a ruse.

He dresses nicely. While I’ve got on ripped jeans and a hooded sweatshirt the color of gunmetal and torn at the hem, the drawstring missing, he’s got on some kind of dressy, olive-colored pants dad-types wear. Not my dad, but other people’s dads. Working dads. I have no idea what else is tucked under the black topcoat, but whatever it is, I’m guessing it’s classy. And then there’s the leather satchel that swings from the palm of his hand, all the way through town and into the adjoining neighborhoods where the burghers live, the rich people, in the older but renovated historic homes—Tudor cottages and American foursquare homes—that Pops and I couldn’t afford. Everyone knows that’s where the rich people live, tucked behind their decorative metal fences and sweeping lawns. It’s a scant quarter-mile walk from Main Street in the opposite direction of my own house, overlooking Lake Michigan from a small bluff. From up on the hilltop, these homes overlook the downtown area, the fringes of town, the lake.