Trespassing(13)

“Tell me about the man in the kitchen.”

“Nini says Daddy knowed him.”

“Is it pretend, Bella?”

“Nini’s real.”

“I know that, baby. But the man in the kitchen—”

“I was too little, Mommy.” She practically rolls her eyes. “Don’t ’member him.”

“Does Nini remember?”

“Nini knows.”

“There was a man in the kitchen? When you were little?”

“Yes, Mommy.”

My mouth is instantly dry. It’s not just the dream I had this evening. I remember waking up months ago, at our place in Old Town, feeling as if someone was looking at me, as if someone had been in the house while I was asleep.

What if—I swallow over the lump in my throat—what if it’s true? What if everything Nini says to my daughter is true? What if there really was a man in my house? A man no one but my husband knows?





Chapter 6

November 12

It’s past three in the morning. My head pounds, and every muscle aches with insomnia.

After doing some quick math, I ascertain that it’s about nine where Shell and Mick are vacationing. I don’t want to worry them, but I’m going crazy waiting for information to come to me. I have to try something. Perhaps Micah called his mother. Or sent her an e-mail, letting her know what’s going on. Especially if he needed to get away from me, away from the drama of fertility treatments, for a while.

What the hell. I dial.

After a few rings, Shell’s voice mail picks up. I leave a message:

“Hi, Shell.” I take a deep breath. I can’t just disclose all my fears in a voice mail. Keep it easy. “Hope you’re having a good time. I’m just wondering if you’ve heard from Micah . . . or if you know if he had any plans he maybe forgot to tell me about. Give me a call when you can. Love you.”

When I hang up, I feel lonelier than ever.

Bella is asleep in my bed next to me, and my laptop is open on my lap.

I’ve gone through nearly an entire box of tissues, and while I don’t know where I’m finding more tears to cry, they keep coming.

The Diamond Corporation website is displayed on the screen. It’s a professional creation of plum and navy, with an eye-catching bolt of lightning lasing down from nowhere to scrawl the word Diamond across the top of the page.

For the eightieth time, I click on the tab ABOUT DIAMOND, and I’m redirected to a page displaying a picture of a woman in a couture business suit seated in a high-backed chair. DIAMOND: CONNECTING THE WORLD THROUGH CUTTING-EDGE COMMUNICATION.

It’s vague. All of it is.

The page apologizes, but it’s under construction, as are the other pages on the site. The CONTACT DIAMOND page offers up an e-mail address and an eight-hundred number, which I’ve already called, but no names of corporate gods or generals who might be able to help me track down Micah and his plane.

Bella lets out a chuckle in her sleep. “So funny, Nini.”

Nini.

I click to open another tab and search for Nini.

It comes up in a baby name dictionary. It means “little girl” or “little sister.” My heart warms when I consider what Dr. Russo said about Bella’s creating a sister while waiting for IVF to work its magic.

I should leave it at that. But a nagging sensation tugs at me. Nini appeared one day, out of the blue and unexplained. It was a week or so after the miscarriage. Micah’s parents were out of town, and Micah had taken Elizabella to his parents’ lake house up north, and they came back with Nini. She isn’t a good child, a good influence, a good playmate.

I type in, if only to see the comfort of no results returned, Nini Demon. Images from anime pop up and pages of comic books beckon. I click on a small cartoon of the Nini demon, who looks almost sweet. She’s seven years old—not little, Bella said earlier of her imaginary friend. In the world of comics, Nini is a child spirit who makes trouble. It’s true enough in my house, and I nearly smile through my tears at the coincidence of it.

How Elizabella managed to come up with Nini as a name—either meaning “little sister” or in reference to the mischievous influence with whom she spends her days—is a mystery.

I return to the search results and am just about to close the browser when a link at the bottom of the page catches my eye. I click, and it takes me to a reference page—a dictionary cataloging the legacy of Native American dialects—and my heart nearly stops.

The root nini can be a verb or a noun, but however it is used, it’s a reference to fear, synonymous with the verbs “to thunder” and “to scare.” Nini is also an evil being, used in folklore to scare unruly children—like the bogeyman of my childhood.

But the bogeyman never spoke to me. The bogeyman never stole my red crayon or talked me into eating chocolate pudding in the great room—or insisted there was a man in my kitchen or told me Daddy went to God Land.

Schizophrenia. I don’t have to google it to know it’s a condition marked by not knowing what’s real and what’s not. By hearing voices in one’s head. One of my last conversations with my mother involved her confessing the terrible things she’d been instructed to do.

“No,” I whisper to myself. “Don’t remember her that way. Remember the good years.” But I’m raw and vulnerable. I can’t help feeling as if she’s still here sometimes, still looking at me like that . . . like she’d bury an ax in my skull, if she’d had strength enough to lift it.