One of Those Faces
Elle Grawl
SUMMER
CHAPTER ONE
Her face is just like mine. But cold and gray. Unmoving.
I remember holding myself back from reaching in and shaking her. As if she would wake up. But she wasn’t asleep. She didn’t look real, her skin like polished alabaster.
The open casket was a terrible idea. Everyone realized it too late. They all wanted to see their favorite one more time, no matter the cost.
It’s that same face staring back at me in my nightmares. She ages with me. Now, I see a twenty-five-year-old version of myself lying in that coffin, and I stare down into the gray, bloated face that mirrors my own.
I lean in closer in every dream and bend down as if she would whisper something.
Her eyes rip open, broken seams dangling between her eyelashes, and a hand made of ice around my throat.
I opened my eyes in the darkness. My throat and arms were stiff, cold logs anchoring me to the bed. My comforter was below my waist and tangled around my legs, the light from the TV flashing onto the blades of the ceiling fan as it spun above at full speed.
I craned my neck to the right side toward the window. Woodstock sat purring on the sill, licking his bright-orange fur.
I picked my phone up from the nightstand and nearly dropped it. It felt like trying to pull a bowling ball onto the bed with my hand, still tingling back to life.
5:20 p.m.
I hoisted myself up with a groan, the evening news song chiming behind me as I stretched my hands overhead.
“We have an update today about a murder that has set the Logan Square community on edge. Police have now identified the victim as mother and—”
I grabbed the remote control and switched the TV off before the anchor could finish her sentence.
Crime. That was the news. Always.
I pulled my hair up from my shoulders and wrapped it with the elastic band from my wrist before ambling into the bathroom and turning on the light. I kept my eyes down, focused only on the counter in front of me, but caught a glimpse in the mirror as I reached for the medicine cabinet.
I jolted at the eerie countenance staring back at me. I was almost as gray and pale as the specter in my dream. Before I could look away, I’d already caught sight of the scar along my neck down to my collarbone. It was red and angry from hours of my tossing and turning. I arranged my hair over my ear and in front of my neck, covering the scar.
I dug my fingers into the side of the counter, averting my eyes again from the mirror.
Breathe.
Some days it was harder than others to wake up. To remember.
By the time I left the bathroom, Woodstock had relocated to my drafting table and was licking his front paws. I walked over and tugged at the drawing underneath him until he jumped down. My self-imposed isolation of the past few days hadn’t been nearly as productive as I’d hoped. I was still far behind on my latest illustration job. I brushed away the cat fur from the pen-and-ink drawing of a mouse in trousers and a billowing white shirt. His eyes were too far apart and his fur essentially artless scribbles, clearly the product of working at three o’clock in the morning after staying awake for thirty-six hours straight. I sighed and crumpled the paper and dropped it to the floor, barely missing the garbage can.
I couldn’t handle any more time here alone with myself. Or with Issi.
“Sarah? Hi!”
I looked up from the picture book in my hands at the frazzled woman clasping the wrists of two small boys desperately trying to wriggle free. “Sorry,” I muttered. “I’m not Sarah.”
The woman released the boys and appraised me, her gaze lingering on my bulky black sweater before drifting back to my face. Wearing winter clothes in the middle of summer tended to attract attention. Curiosity. “We met last week,” she insisted. “At the museum? You had your daughter with you. Kimmy introduced us.”
I let her finish. Partially because I was too tired to stop her but mostly because this was already the longest conversation I’d had this week since ordering a late-night hot dog three days ago. “Yeah, I’m sorry, that wasn’t me.”
She blinked several times, the fringe from her A-line bob beginning to edge toward her uneven eyebrows. “I’m sorry. I could’ve sworn it was you.” She turned and walked toward her kids, who were now playing with the model train track between the aisles of bookshelves.
I opened the picture book again and browsed the watercolors of a mouse and fox on a spunky adventure. Perusing the children’s book section was always my last and most desperate attempt to draw inspiration for projects. It had been a while since I’d been commissioned to do any watercolor illustrations of nonhuman subjects. I glanced up and noticed the woman staring at me over her kids’ ginger heads.
I closed the book and replaced it on the shelf before sliding out of the children’s section. This wasn’t the only time I’d been mistaken for someone else, but this was perhaps the first time someone had been so insistent.
I popped into the bookstore coffee shop. I was hot under my sweater, but I ordered a regular coffee before settling at a table near the counter.
As I took the initial sips of my black, steaming coffee, I scanned the rest of the shop. The bored mother in the seat in front of me scrolled Instagram on her phone while her daughter furiously scribbled on a coloring book page. The petite blonde barista all too cheerily whipped up a latte for the muscular college student across the counter. The muscular college student adjusted his baseball cap.