Mud Vein(24)

He pushed it back and tapped his forefinger on the counter. “You haven’t eaten in three days.”

“Why do you care?” It came out harsher than I intended. Everything I said did.

I watched his face for a lie, but he just shrugged.

“It’s who I am.”

I ate his soup. Then he made himself comfortable on my couch and went to sleep. In his clothes. I stood on the stairs and watched him for a long time, his socked feet sticking out of the bottom of the blanket he was using. Eventually I crawled into my bed. I reached out before I closed my eyes, and touched the book on the nightstand. Just the cover.





He came every night. Sometimes as early as three o’ clock in the afternoon, sometimes as late as nine. It was alarming how quickly a person could acquiesce to something—something like a stranger in your house, sleeping and scooping grounds into your Mr. Coffee. When he started buying groceries and cooking meals it felt permanent. Like I suddenly had a roommate or a family member I never signed up for. But on the nights he came late I found myself anxious, pacing the hallways in three pairs of socks, unable to stay in one room for more than a few seconds before I moved to the next. The worst part was, when he arrived, I immediately retreated to my bedroom to hide. None of the relief I felt at seeing the lights of his car reflected through my windows was allowed to show. It was cold, but it was survival. I wanted to ask him why he was late. Was it surgery? Did they make it? But I didn’t dare.

Every morning I woke up to find another of his business cards on the counter. I stopped throwing them away after a few days and let them pile up near the fruit bowl. The fruit bowl that was always filled with fruit, because he bought it and put it there: red and green apples, yellow pears, the occasional fuzzy kiwi. We didn’t speak much. It was a silent relationship, which I was fine with. He fed me and I said thank you, then he went to sleep on my couch. I started to wonder how well I’d be sleeping if he wasn’t guarding the door. If I’d sleep at all. The couch was short—too short for his six-foot frame; it was the smaller of the two that I owned. One day while he was at the hospital I took a break from staring at the fire to push the longer couch in front of the door. I left him a better pillow and a warmer blanket.



There was one particular night that he didn’t arrive until almost eleven. I’d given up on him coming altogether, thinking our strange relationship had finally run its course. I was on my way up the stairs when I heard a quiet knock on the door. Just a rap rap rap. It could have been a gust of wind it was so light. But in my hope I heard it. He didn’t look at me when I opened the door. Or wouldn’t. Or couldn’t. He seemed to be finding my pavers particularly interesting, and then the spot just above my left shoulder. He had dark crescents under his eyes, two hollow moons cradling his lashes. It would have been a hard call to decide who looked worse—me in my layers of clothing or Isaac with his droopy shoulders. We both looked beat up.

I tried to pretend I wasn’t watching him as he walked to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. When he came out, the top two buttons of his shirt were undone and his sleeves were rolled to his elbows. He never brought a change of clothes. He slept in what he wore and left early in the morning, presumably to go home and shower. I didn’t know where he lived, how old he was, or where he went to medical school. All the things you found out by asking questions. I did know that he drove a hybrid. He wore aftershave that smelled like chai tea spilled on old leather. Three times a week he grocery shopped. Always paper bags; most of Washington is composed of people trying to save the planet, one Coke can at a time. I always chose plastic just to be defiant. Now I had mounds of paper grocery bags stacked on my pantry floor, all neatly folded. He’d started wheeling the green recycling can to the curb on Thursdays. I was officially and unwillingly part of the green people cult. On Sundays he’d steal my neighbor’s paper. It’s the only thing I really liked about him.



Isaac opened the fridge and stared inside, one hand rubbing the back of his neck.

“There’s nothing here,” he said. “Let’s go out for dinner.” Not what I was expecting.

I immediately felt like I couldn’t breathe. I backed up until my heels were pressing against the stairs. I hadn’t left the house in twenty-two days. I was afraid. Afraid that nothing would be the same, afraid that everything would be the same. Afraid of this man who I didn’t know, and who was speaking to me with so much familiarity. Let’s go out to dinner. Like we did this all the time. He didn’t know anything. Not about me, at least.

“Don’t run,” he said, coming to stand in the spot where the kitchen met the living room. “You haven’t left the house in three weeks. It’s just dinner.”

“Get out,” I said, pointing to the door. He didn’t move.

“I won’t let anything happen to you, Senna.”

The silence that followed was so loud that I could hear my faucet dripping, my heart beating, the scratchy feet of fear as it crawled out of my pores.

Thirty seconds, two minutes, one minute, five. I don’t know how long we stood there in a silent standoff. He hadn’t really said my name since the night he found me outside. We’d been two strangers. Now that he’d said it, it made everything feel real. This is really happening, I thought. All of it.

He moved in for the kill. “We’ll walk to the car,” he said. “I’ll open the door for you, because that’s what I do. We will drive to a great Greek place. Best gyros you’ve ever tasted-open twenty-four hours. You get to choose the music in the car. I’ll open your door, we’ll go inside, get a table by the window. We want the table by the window because the restaurant is across the street from a gym, and the gym is next door to a doughnut shop. And we’ll want to count how many gym goers stop for doughnuts after they work out. We’ll talk or we can just watch the doughnut shop. Whatever you want. But you have to leave the house, Senna. And I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Please.”