Chapter 15
THE SHADOWS
Aster stopped writing early one evening.
Any time before I went to bed could have counted as early.
Ever since my excursion to the Childress cemetery days earlier, man and machine had merged into one primal force.
I had become redundant. Aster increasingly didn’t need me nearby.
He didn’t need to talk to me or ask what I thought. He didn’t care.
My own ambition had landed me in a place where I couldn’t possibly succeed: stranded on the couch watching someone else work, or alone on a beach with only the waves for company. Not achieving anything. Not advancing in any part of my life. An accessory.
We didn’t talk much about the book itself.
Aster kept it as a secret matter, private, as if talking about it with me would pop it like a bubble.
He acted nervous about his work, as if he now cared about finishing the draft before a certain point and meeting a predetermined standard.
He wasn’t in the mood to make another toast to immanent success.
He was frustrated. Agitated. His voice tightened and his features grew harder by the day.
The laidback muse I’d first summoned into my life felt like another person entirely.
Back when Aster commenced his writing odyssey, I had assumed the phase would last for two or three days until he tired of the idea or thought of something new to chase down.
Instead, Aster only threw himself deeper into his draft with every passing hour.
The few times when I crept into place behind him, the words popped up on the screen almost as fast as I could read them before Aster’s fingers lifted from the keyboard and he chased me away.
He didn’t want me to read it at all anymore. He didn’t want me to get too close.
Tonight was different. He slowed down. I was reading on the couch when I noticed—thumbing through a copy of Daphne Maurier’s Rebecca that I’d found in a local bookstore.
Aster’s fingertips clacking away in the corner added a natural soundtrack, almost as if the words on the pages in front of me were being written as I read them.
When the taps grew slower and further apart, I assumed that he must have hit an emotional high point and now slowed down to work on a scene more passionately than he would have before.
Otherwise he had backed himself into a corner and was searching his brain for the best way out, a natural but unfortunate repercussion of writing without a plan.
Then he stopped. He turned around the room—checking my presence, I assumed—and then he looked back. He typed a few more words, three or five. Then he stopped again. Just leave me alone, he said a moment later.
I glanced out the window. The afternoon light still reigned supreme over the wilderness outside, though the sun was beginning to lower. “Should I make something for supper?”
He sucked in his breath. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were still here. Don’t worry about it.
Then he returned to his typing. It sounded like angry typing now, peppered with sharp breaths and exasperated intention behind every tap. I returned my eyes to the book and tried to remember what I’d just read, but my distraction kept me from reading any further.
I’ve done—nothing—wrong, said Aster, still typing. How long are you going to stay here? You treat me like a criminal, but I can tell you it’s all above board.
Then he stopped. He steepled his hands in front of him and drew a long breath.
At this point I couldn’t even pretend to read. “Is everything all right?” I asked.
I thought I told you to stay away!
He turned around, eyes wide and fiery, nostrils flaring.
I sank back against the cushions and clawed my fingers into the red and gray blanket.
Then he looked around. He stood up and stretched. I’m sorry. I never meant it to come out like that. It’s just that I’ve been seeing them a lot lately and sometimes I forget myself. They keep coming back—keep telling me over and over to stop.
“Who?” I asked, but I already knew.
Until now, the most colorful part of Aster’s encounters with the people I couldn’t see—the Fates—had been when we went to the cafe together. Since then he had occasionally reacted to their invisible presence or mentioned them off hand, but he refused to clarify any of my questions on the matter.
He started pacing across the floor in a broad circle. No one, he said, tense like he was defying these people by the very act of declaring their nonexistence.
“I know it’s not no one,” I said. “The Fates, right? Want to talk about them?”
He shook his head. I thought they were the Fates. I don’t know. Maybe they are. Maybe there’s something to it. But sometimes I feel like I’m making the whole thing up. Like I look at them and they’re not there. And I don’t know if I should be terrified… or what.
“You’re working too hard,” I said. “You shouldn’t scare me like that. Anyone would think you were hallucinating. Losing touch with reality. Is there anything I could do to help?”
Aster didn’t answer directly. He glared hotly at me and sat down behind the desk again, returning to his typing with a renewed force.
His shoulders drooped, and his typing sounded sad now instead of its earlier excitement.
I wanted to comfort him, but I knew that he would send me away if I broke the bubble of silence he now held sacred.
I got up from my space on the couch and put the book face down on a side table. I had prepared a pasta salad for lunch earlier and sat down to finish it at the dining room table alone now.
On the wall over the table hung a calendar currently open to July and displaying a large picture of a lighthouse a short drive south of here. I’d penciled in only a single event in my time here.
Next week, my parents planned to stop for a visit as a part of a road trip through New England.
I’d have to find a way to introduce Aster to them and give him a cover story he would be willing and able to own up to: how we met, what he did for a living, and the precise nature of our relationship.
I might jokingly tell them about how I’d recruited Aster as my personal assistant when I found him.
For a moment, the thought sounded coherent.
Then I looked down at my salad and heaved a sigh.
I wasn’t ready for a visit from my parents.
I wouldn’t have anything to tell them because I hadn’t been doing anything.
Aster had achieved a masterpiece without any real involvement from me.
Even if he let me put my name under the title and offered me the full rights and credits to the work, one question bothered me over and over: the question of whether Aster’s book counted as mine.
When I finished my meal and wiped my dishes clean in the sink, I returned to a silent living room. Aster still sat behind the desk. His hands were clapped over his ears and his eyes closed like he wanted to block something out.
For three seconds I stood in the doorway, torn between wanting to ask what tormented him and wanting to stay away for my own peace of mind.
Then he turned. The shadows under his eyes stood out in the distant lighting. Say something to me, he said.
“Maybe I could go out for dinner alone and give you some space,” I said, realizing my options had never been different.
Please don’t! he snapped, quietly, his nostrils flaring but his eyes darting away as if in shame. I mean, I don’t want you to leave me.
“I’m not doing anything,” I said. “We’ve been working on this book for ages, and I still don’t know where it’s going. What purpose do I have hanging out here?”
A layer of sweat appeared on his forehead, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. It’s because it’s your book. Our book together. The book is a symbol of our bond. And it needs you as much as it needs me.
“A symbol?”
You’re all I have, Stella. Don’t you see that?
If you go away… I know you’ll be all right.
That you can take care of yourself. But every time you leave my presence, I become less without you.
I can’t stand up for myself. I can’t protect myself from everything, and at this point, if anything happens to me, it will be better if I had never existed.
Stay with me. Promise you’ll stay with me. I want to last, too.
“What?” I asked.
He bristled. What I’m trying to say is that I need you. I need the feel of your presence and the sound of your voice. So I want you to tell me something. Anything. Your plans for the weekend, your life story. I want to hear a voice that isn’t my own and remember what it sounds like.
I hesitated as I regrouped my thoughts and tried to push aside my anxiety. “My parents are coming by next week.”
Your parents? His jaw tightened and he looked sharply away from me at a crack in the floor. That’s not what I meant. I wanted you to throw yourself at me… not drag me in the direction of someone else.
“It could be the perfect change of pace,” I said, flipping on a light switch and stepping further into the room. “They’re road-tripping through New England, and they plan to spend the night here. Or in town, anyway. Maybe we can find a place in town and take them out to eat together.”
Aster closed the lid of the laptop and stood. His shoulders were rigid, and he wiped the sweat from his face in an effort to look calm. I thought we agreed that we wouldn’t involve anyone else in our summer, he said. It was supposed to be just the two of us. No one else.
“You just said you wanted to hear other voices.”
I said I want to hear a voice that isn’t my own, he corrected. That’s you. I want to hear your voice. Not the yammering dialog from a pair of tourists. We need to be alone right now. Call it off.
“My parents and I set this up when I first came here,” I said. “Before then. It’s only for a day.”