The Woman in the Window(23)

“Well.” He throws one last look at the chess set, at the television; then he moves toward the door. “I appreciate your time. Sorry to bother you.”

“Of course,” I say as he steps into the hall. “And please thank your wife for the candle.”

He pivots, looks at me.

“Ethan brought it over.”

“When was that?” he asks.

“A few days ago. Sunday.” Wait—what day is today? “Or Saturday.” I feel annoyed; why should he care when it was? “Does it matter?”

He pauses, his mouth ajar. Then he flashes an absent smile and leaves without another word.



Before I tilt myself into bed, I peer through the window at number 207. There they are, the family Russell, collected in the parlor: Jane and Ethan on the sofa, Alistair seated in an armchair across from them, speaking intently. A good man and a good father.

Who knows what goes on in a family? I learned this as a grad student. “You can spend years with a patient and still they’ll surprise you,” Wesley told me after we’d shaken hands for the first time, his fingers yellow with nicotine.

“How so?” I asked.

He settled himself behind his desk, clawed his hair back. “You can hear someone’s secrets and their fears and their wants, but remember that these exist alongside other people’s secrets and fears, people living in the same rooms. You’ve heard that line about all happy families being the same?”

“War and Peace,” I said.

“Anna Karenina, but that’s not the point. The point is, it’s untrue. No family, happy or unhappy, is quite like any other. Tolstoy was chock-full o’ shit. Remember that.”

I remember it now as I gently thumb the focusing ring, as I frame a photo. A family portrait.

But then I set the camera down.





Wednesday, November 3





20


I wake with Wesley in my head.

Wesley and a hard-earned hangover. I wade my way down to the study, as if through a fog, then run into the bathroom and vomit. Heavenly Rapture.

As I’ve discovered, I throw up with great accuracy. I could go pro, Ed says. One flush and the mess slides away; I rinse my mouth, pat some color into my cheeks, return to the study.

Across the park, the Russells’ windows are empty, their rooms dim. I stare at the house; it stares back. I find I miss them.

I look south, where a beat-up taxi drags itself down the street; a woman strides in its wake, coffee cup in hand, goldendoodle on a leash. I check the clock on my phone: 10:28. How am I up this early?

Right: I forgot my temazepam. Well, I keeled over before I could remember it. It keeps me unconscious, weighs me down like a rock.

And now last night swirls in my brain, strobe-light dazzly, like the carousel from Strangers on a Train. Did that even happen? Yes: We uncorked Jane’s wine; we talked boats; we wolfed chocolate; I took a photo; we discussed our families; I arranged my pills across the table; we drank some more. Not in that order.

Three bottles of wine—or was it four? Even so, I can stomach more, have stomached more. “The pills,” I say, the way a detective cries “Eureka!”—my dosage. I double-dosed yesterday, I remember. Must be the pills. “I bet those’ll knock you on your behind,” Jane giggled after I’d downed the lot, chased them with a slug of wine.

My head is quaking; my hands are shaking. I find a travel-size tube of Advil hidden in the back of my desk drawer, toss three capsules down my throat. The expiration date came and went nine months ago. Children have been conceived and born in that time, I reflect. Whole lives created.

I swallow a fourth, just in case.

And then . . . What then? Yes: Then Alistair arrived, asking after his wife.

Motion beyond the window. I look up. It’s Dr. Miller, leaving the house for work. “See you at three fifteen,” I tell him. “Don’t be late.”

Don’t be late—that was Wesley’s golden rule. “For some people, this is the most important fifty minutes of their week,” he would remind me. “So for Christ’s sake, whatever else you do or fail to do, don’t be late.”

Wesley Brilliant. It’s been three months since I checked up. I grip the mouse and visit Google. The cursor flashes in the search field like a pulse.

He still occupies the same endowed adjunct chair, I see; he’s still publishing articles in the Times and assorted industry journals. And he’s still in practice, of course, although I recall that the office moved to Yorkville over the summer. I say “the office,” but really it would’ve been just Wesley and his receptionist, Phoebe, and her Square card reader. And that Eames lounge chair. He adores his Eames.

That Eames but not much else. Wesley never married; his lectureship was his love, his patients his children. “Don’t you go feeling sorry for poor Dr. Brill, Fox,” he warned me. I remember it perfectly: Central Park, swans with their question-mark necks, high noon beyond the lacy elms. He’d just asked me to join him as junior partner in the practice. “My life is too full,” he said. “That’s why I need you, or someone like you. There are more children we can help together.”

He was, as ever, right.

I click on Google Images. The search yields a small gallery of photographs, none especially recent, none especially flattering. “I don’t photograph well,” he once observed, uncomplaining, a roily halo of cigar smoke churning overhead, his fingernails stained and split.