The Husband Who Is And Is Not
I left Emmett with his coffee cooling on the floorboards and went down the narrow stairs two at a time, which is more than my knees, at forty-six, appreciate. The second-floor landing was empty. The pressure in the house had shifted again, and I could feel it in the soft tissue behind my ears. I went to the top of the main stairs and leaned on the rail and called, conversationally, "Hello? Is somebody here?"
There was. I had felt it from the foyer the day before, underneath the attention of Emmett and the lavender sachets, and I had chosen not to chase it, because you do not chase a second presence on a first visit. You let the house tell you, on its own time, what else it is holding.
The house was telling me now. There was a man in the dining room.
I went down. I did not run. Running is for people who think this work is about being brave, and most of it is about not being stupid. When I came into the dining room he was standing at the bay window with his back to me, and he was wearing a navy polo shirt and khakis and boat shoes, and for a full three seconds I thought it was Mr. Lindeman, home early. Then he turned, and his face was not Mr. Lindeman's face. Then he turned again, and it was. And then he wasn't there at all.
I sat down at the Lindemans' dining-room table — reclaimed heart pine, a tasteful runner, a bowl of lemons that might have been real and might have been