“Get Mom!” I croak. I can feel him staring at me.
“Here,” he says. He peels the cheesecloth off my face gently and replaces it with a damp washcloth. “I’ll go get her.”
Anna calls out from the other room. “Conrad, it’s your turn!”
“Coming!” But he doesn’t leave. “I could read to you or something,” he says.
“I just need Mom.”
He stands up. His foot shifts back and forth across the gritty wood floor. I wait for him to go.
“I’m sorry about the rubber,” he says finally. “I don’t know why I did that.”
“Because you want everyone to hate you.”
“That’s not true.”
“Then why do you act like such a jerk all the time?”
“I don’t want you to hate me,” he says quietly.
“Kind of late for that, isn’t it?” Anna says from the door. “Stop bothering my sister, Conrad.”
“It’s okay,” I say.
“That’s because you can’t open your eyes, so you don’t realize he’s standing there ogling you like some creepy freak.”
I can feel Conrad go rigid.
“C’mon, lovebird, everyone’s waiting.”
“Stop it, Anna,” I say. “He wasn’t bothering me.”
“Fine,” she says. “Your funeral. And if you don’t come right now, Conrad, we’re dealing you out.”
“I’ll be there in a sec,” he says.
“Sorry about that.” I pause. “And I’m really sorry I said that about your mom.”
Conrad sits down on the side of my bed.
14
1982. January, New York.
I climb into bed and wait. Soon I hear my mother’s stockinged footsteps pause outside my door in the long book-lined hallway of our apartment. She should be wearing shoes. The old floorboards splinter and attack anyone reckless enough to wear socks in the house. A quick run down the hall, a skid, and a thin shiv of dark wood pierces your foot, too deep for tweezers. The soles of my feet are covered in tiny scars. By now I can perform the ritual myself: light the match, sterilize the needle until its point glows red, tear open a line of flesh above the splinter’s shadow. Dig.
Mum switches off the hall light as she passes my room. She hates wasting electricity. I wait for the shush of her bedroom door. In the living room Leo closes his book, pulls the chain on the old Ming vase lamp, shoves back his heavy wooden armchair. Their bedroom door opens, shuts again, more firmly now. Hushed good-night voices, water running in the bathroom, the soft crunk of the plastic rinsing glass being replaced onto the edge of the porcelain sink. I count the minutes. Listen for the creak of the bed as it takes Leo’s weight. My breath rises and falls. I listen to the shift of my cotton sheets. Wait. Wait. Silence has fallen. Careful not to make the smallest sound, I get out of bed, turn the door handle slowly. Still silence. I reach into the pitch-dark hallway and feel around for the light switch, turn the light back on. Wait. Nothing. They are asleep or too tired to bother. I close my door tight, climb back into bed, pull the covers up around my neck. I have done what I can. It’s always safer when the hallway is lit.
* * *
—
One night in October, a month after we got back from the Cape, I surfaced from a deep sleep. What woke me was a breeze on my thighs. I remember thinking I had kicked off my covers, but when I reached down to pull them up, I realized my nightgown had gotten scrunched all the way up, legs and stomach and breasts exposed. And there was wetness all over my panties. My period had come early. I wiped my hand off on my nightgown and was getting up to go to the bathroom when a thought occurred to me: there was no dark streak, no blood where I had wiped off my hand. I put my hand to my nose, confused. A strong bitter smell I didn’t recognize. A thick, gruel texture. And then I saw something move in my closet. Someone was in there, hidden in the shadows, the hollow darkness. I could not see his face, but I could see his penis, a fleshy white against the blackness, still erect. He was squeezing it, the last drops of semen glistening on the tip. I froze, paralyzed. Afraid to breathe. In the past three months, four women had been found raped and strangled to death in the city, and they hadn’t caught the killer yet. The most recent victim was only about eighteen years old. She had been found naked, floating in the river, hands tied behind her back. Carefully, slowly, I lay back down. Maybe if he thought I hadn’t seen him, he would leave without hurting me. I closed my eyes tight and prayed. Please get out. Please get out. I won’t yell. I won’t tell anyone. In the quiet inside me, I was screaming so loud that sound filled the void, a terror I could barely control. Minutes passed. Finally, a movement. The swing of my bedroom door. I allowed myself to open my eyes a crack, to make sure he was gone. Just as the door was shutting, Conrad turned around.