Chapter 34
The police officers who come by have resigned expressions and tired eyes.
They won’t help; it’s clear they consider this a waste of time.
But Tom can’t see it—he’s too worked up, and wants to wring something from them: an answer, a resolution.
I’m ashamed of having told him and ashamed to have them here, but what can I do but sit beside him on our sofa, observing the scene as if it has little to do with me?
Officer Denby, the one in charge, is short and stout, stuffed into his uniform; he has small, penetrating eyes.
The other, Christenson, is his opposite: fair-haired and skittish; tall and long in the limbs, face, and hands.
My eyes rove over the pair of them sitting in our armchairs and I desperately want my camera.
It would be odd for me to fetch it, odder still for me to use it, so instead I watch, helpless, as Denby holds forth and Christenson picks at his hangnails.
Denby has a habit of swiping a finger under his nose as if he were combing a ghost mustache.
I see shot after shot pass by, evaporating as the men gesture and speak.
I could have had a whole series of photographs by now, but I’m relegated to sitting here with my hands clasped together.
Tom does most of the talking, as if he, not I, were the victim.
I don’t mind. I’ve brought out coffee and a plate of store-bought cookies, but all of it goes untouched; the men talk while the coffee grows cold.
Tom narrates my experience like I’m not here at all, like I’m a picture on the wall or a child at a grown-up party, invisible.
I know this feeling—I remember it from back then.
When my father sat beside me on the sofa and we faced one officer, not two.
Just as I was back then, I’m surprised by the sound of my story, the one I’ve lived, coming from a man’s lips.
Like my father, Tom gets things wrong: he says the man in the crosswalk pushed me, and he says the man in the car was armed—when I was the only one with a weapon.
I don’t correct him on either point. Why should I?
None of it matters. I take a quiet sip of coffee, but my cup clinks loudly against the porcelain plate.
The detectives turn as if I’ve just appeared.
“Mrs. Stanley, how long has this been going on? The, uh…” Denby, the lead man, looks down at his notes.
“The phone calls, the general harassment?” He sounds bored.
I glance at Tom. The real answer is thirty-four years, but Tom doesn’t know that.
And he won’t. To tell him now would be cruel, after keeping it from him so long.
“Six or seven weeks,” I say. “It started after my husband came home from the hospital and our Rosie died.”
“Rosie?” Denby’s head snaps up.
“Our dog,” Tom says, reddening. The men exchange a look. I feel like the foolish woman they think I am, for mentioning our dead dog. There’s silence while Denby takes notes.
“Can you describe the man for us?” Denby’s pen is poised in the air, ready for definitive details. But I have nothing definitive to give him. I could never say, He looks different each time, but somehow he’s the same man.
I look down and mutter, “Tall. White. Brown-haired. Maybe…fifties? He’s often wearing a hat.” Denby nods, recording my vague descriptors.
“Eye color? Or clothing he wore? Nose shape? Any more specifics you can give us will help.” Christenson isn’t taking notes. His long hands are folded in his lap while he studies me. His gaze makes me feel guilty as I stammer a response.
“He’s worn a suit before. He wore it on the subway. Navy blue. Nice shoes—brown loafers. And I saw a—pointy chin.” I can’t bring myself to talk about his hands. I could say, with long hands like yours, indicating Christenson, but I think I’d vomit.
“Nothing else?” Denby asks. I shake my head and listen to the officer’s pen scratch across the paper. The sound goes on for longer than it should, becoming so strident I want to cover my ears.
“Your husband tells us you have some photographs with the man in the background, is that right?” Denby asks when he’s finally done writing.
“I do, though I’ve cropped him out. But I can reprint the negatives and—and leave him in.
” The thought of putting the man back in, of tainting my cleansed pictures, makes me sick.
It would be wrong—horribly wrong. But when Denby asks me to do just that and drop them by the station, I say I will.
I sound firm and sure—and truthful—when I say it, but I doubt myself even as I utter the words.
I can’t picture myself doing it; I even wonder if I can.
Denby stands abruptly, and Christenson, taken off guard, rises as well.
“You should start taking notes whenever he calls, too. Record what he says. In the meantime, all we can really do is advise you to be cautious. We can’t take action unless he physically harms you—”
“He did harm her. Did you hear a word I said?” Tom stands abruptly, towering over both men. I’m proud of his height and strength in the moment—even as I’m mortified. Denby holds his palms out as if to say, Step back.
“Tom,” I say softly.
“I just mean that without any physical evidence of—”
“You want physical evidence? You want her to come in bleeding, is that it? Then you’ll ‘take action’?
” I rise to stand beside Tom and put my hand on his arm.
He flicks me off like I’m an insect. I know he’s angry at me, too, for not telling him sooner.
For putting him in this defensive position, for making him look foolish with my fuzzy details, my non-descriptions.
Denby looks at him with weary impatience.
“Sir, we simply can’t step in until we have something concrete to go on. The good news is that we have the report now. So when something else happens—if something happens, and if there’s evidence, we can act quickly.”
Tom scoffs and the men argue more. I focus on the phrase act quickly, thinking not of police officers rushing to my side, sirens blaring, but of reaching into my purse for the knife and holding the blade to that face I haven’t fully seen.
The image fills me with a burning satisfaction—a hunger, even—to do it.
I wasn’t able to do it in the Buick or the subway car, but I feel ready now.
Ready to stab him under the jaw, in that soft, tender spot, ready to see him clutch at the wound, helpless, as blood pours out.
“Ma’am,” Officer Denby says, pulling me back to the room. “The best thing you can do is be cautious. Don’t go out alone, whether it’s day or night. Stay home. It’s the best way to stay safe.”
I don’t say a word. I just hold his gaze and hope he sees that he’s offered us no help, that he’s told me to imprison myself so the man can roam free.
I look at Tom for support but he and Denby are finally in agreement; Tom nods at me, furrowing his brow.
He wants me to stay home. He wants me to be like one of my crystal figurines, secure on the living room shelf.
If I fell, I would land on soft carpet. Tom would pick me up, polish me, and put me back; it would be as if I’d never fallen, never left the house, never journeyed around taking unnecessary pictures.
“Bring us those photographs when you can, all right?” Denby says before leaving. I nod but feel stricken, again, at the thought. I won’t do it, but I won’t tell Tom. Christenson, who hasn’t spoken, follows Denby out the door, and then the two men are gone.