Shutter(29)

Angie was quiet. Quiet in the worst of ways. I didn’t know what else to say, only adding to the suppression of sound.

“I think you should quit,” she said at last. “Or maybe I should let Samuels know what’s going on. I’m sure he wouldn’t want you out on the field with these hallucinations.”

“They’re not hallucinations,” I shouted. “They’ve been talking to me for years. Ever since I was a little girl.”

“Maybe we should schedule an appointment with the department shrink.” Angie pulled up to the front of my building. “I’m going to go talk to Samuels in the morning. I think you’ve been overworked the last few weeks. How many scenes have you been on in the last couple of days? I’m going to recommend at least a week off and monitored counseling with the department psychologist.” She paused. “You know the work we do isn’t easy. We see the worst of people. It is okay to say you need help. It’s okay to admit that you’re having a problem.”

“Thanks for the ride, Angie.” I grabbed my broken camera. I was tired of trying to explain myself and Angie was obviously not on the fast track to believing me.

“Rita? You need to go to the shrink,” Angie shouted at me through the glass. “I won’t tell Samuels about the hospital, okay?”

I didn’t care what she told him. And for the first time in a long time, I didn’t care if I ever went to work again. Somehow, I had let the whole thing get away from me. I was desolate and lonely, standing outside with a broken camera, wrapped in my muddy work coat with bloody tissues sticking out of my nostrils. Something had to change.

My body tripped and staggered like a drunk, the empty halls of my building echoing with every step. I looked up to see my floor in darkness. Mrs. Santillanes was sitting in the shadows, as quiet as a cotton ball.

“Hello, Mrs. Santillanes. I hope I didn’t wake you.” I took the last two steps, my legs stinging with muscle burn.

“Rita?” Mrs. Santillanes looked at me like I was a wounded dog. “Are you all right?” She pointed to my jacket. My sleeve had a broad semicircle of blood in the crook of the arm. She pulled me inside her apartment.

I had never been in Mrs. Santillanes’s apartment long enough to see everything. I noticed the photographs right away. On the walls along the front hallway, Mrs. Santillanes had photographs framed in order of date. A color photo of her and some young children, a black-and-white photo of a very elegant woman and a child, and another photograph—a tintype—of a beautiful but mysterious woman. All their eyes were the same.

“You like the tintype?” Mrs. Santillanes stared at the image. “It’s my abuela. She used to work at the drug store on Atrisco, handing out remedies to whoever came in.” She straightened the picture. “She was a tough lady. They used to call her a witch because she knew more than she should.” Mrs. Santillanes shuffled toward the kitchen and banged the back of one of her kitchen chairs. “Sit down.”

I could not stop looking at her kitchen. In each corner of the room, there were small shelves that held wrapped bundles of dried leaves and vines alongside small statues of the Virgin Mary and Jesus. There were crucifixes on every wall and every shelf, sitting on tables, counters, and surfaces, even drawn on a small chalkboard alongside one of Mrs. Santillanes’s grocery lists. When I turned to see out of her small kitchen window, Jesus met my stare, his frozen eyes in perpetual tears.

“Take that jacket off,” Mrs. Santillanes ordered.

When I removed my jacket, I could feel the sticky adhesive of skin and blood. There was no way that night would ever be washed out of it.

Mrs. Santillanes straightened my arm. “That looks terrible. Look at that bruise. How did you get this?” She stared at the hole in my arm.

“I was at the hospital last night . . . well, this morning.” The sun was finally heaving itself over the horizon. “I had to leave quickly.”

She cleaned the skin with peroxide, sealed it up with gauze and a strip of electric tape.

“I’m sorry about the tape. It’s all I have,” she said.

“Thank you, Mrs. Santillanes.” The lesion in my arm had stopped pulsing.

“What is this?” She pointed. I turned to see some blood on my side.

“Pull up your shirt. Let me see your back.” She turned on the light, lifted my shirt over my ribs, and immediately began making the sign of the cross. “Oh, hija. Look at your back.” She walked me over to her mirror in the foyer and showed me what she was referring to. “Mira. Who did this to you?” There were at least twenty or thirty small and large bruises and two sets of handprints right above my elbow.

“I’ll be fine,” I said, and pulled my shirt down. She crossed herself again.

I could see that she was shaken as she began to take jars down from the cabinets and mix, pour, and stir. She poured some tea into two small cups and brought them over to the table.

“Is this some of your special tea? Something to put me to sleep?” I absorbed the warmth of steam in my nostrils.

“No. That’s just Lipton.” She slammed four small jars on the table. “You need to put these in the corners of your bedroom so that you can get some sleep. If anything bothers you, you must ignore it.” I didn’t ask any questions. She pulled an egg from her apron and begin to rub me with it, going over my head and down my arms and legs. She moved to her cupboard, then pulled out a glass and filled it with water from a canister on her table. She cracked the egg into the water, and I watched the yolk sink to the bottom. “Take this and put it under your bed too. Whoever has their eye on you will let you go.”