Day Seven （Joy Moore）
Joy Moore
Day Seven
Shivering, I half doze for hours, trapped in the margins of sleep. When I finally rise to use the bathroom, the building is quiet. No hissing pipes. No footsteps. No distant chatter.
If Mitali returned, she didn’t make herself known, and in her absence the wrongness has grown.
It occurs to me with a tingly sense of dread that I know almost nothing about her apart from what I learned in the computer lab, and that doesn’t amount to much.
Since, I’ve done almost all the talking.
I’ve entrusted her with my deepest, darkest secrets, and enlisted her help, and all I know is that she intends to have babies with the man whose bad behavior led her to seek refuge in a shelter.
That, and she’s a very big fan of the podcast.
The wrongness swells. My chest aches, and my limbs are equal parts tender and weak. I wrap myself in my quilt and tiptoe down the hall past Mitali’s closed door, all the way to the computer lab. Keeping the lights off, I wait for the monitor to wake up. When the browser loads, I brace myself.
I know my whereabouts are to remain a secret, but I expect to see headlines announcing I’m alive and well. What I find instead is morbid acceptance. My husband is dead, and according to the world I am too.
The ache in my chest expands to my abdomen.
My breath catches when I read the next headline: “Benny Abbott Arrested for Malicious Destruction of Property and Concealment of Evidence.”
I click on the link and skim the short article, certain it must be fake. But it’s not. There are pictures of him in cuffs. Of him being shoved into a police car. Below these is a video.
An ad plays first, the five seconds before I can press skip interminable, and then there he is, exiting his house with the dogs. Reporters and paparazzi surround him.
“What do you have to say about Xander’s death?”
“Where is Joy, Benny?”
He’s pushing past them when a man shouts, “Is it true you’re in love with her, Benny? Is it true you and Joy are in love?” I recognize this voice.
Benny turns to the camera. “Mind your own business,” he says, but his eyes tell the full story. My heart rips straight out of my chest.
I scan every headline, every article, looking for a single shred of evidence that authorities are aware I’m alive, but I find nothing.
They don’t know. They don’t know where I am.
Dragging the quilt behind me, I stumble to the pay phone in the kitchen. There’s a stack of quarters sitting on top beside a sign that reads NO PERSONAL CALLS. Did Mitali lie about everything? Despair pulses through me. Why would she lie?
I start dialing 911, but as I do my head swirls with images of cruisers, of news vans. Of paparazzi taking photos of this building filled with mothers and children who trust their location is safe.
Dizziness overtakes me. The overhead bulb flickers—
A HAND TOUCHES my cheek. “Are you all right?”
I squint up at the figure hovering over me. A woman. A light halo encircles her head, leaving the rest of her shrouded in darkness. “I have severe narcolepsy,” I croak.
“I know you do.” She kneels at my side, and her face comes into focus. She has on a pink robe, and I recognize her lilac hair. Frankie. The woman who drove me to the clinic. “Do you want me to get Gloria?”
“No.” Everyone’s still looking for me. My best friend’s been arrested. Mitali lied. “I want to talk to Mitali.”
Frankie’s pale face is etched with concern. “She’s not here.”
“Where is she?”
The briefest hesitation, the length of a sigh. “Mitali went back to her husband two days ago.”
The linoleum turns to ice beneath me. Two days ago. Understanding sinks in, but still I fight it. “No, she was here. Last night. In my room.”
“Should I get Gloria?”
“No, I just—I thought…” My skin prickles.
“I saw her out early Sunday morning.” Frankie’s voice is cautious, as if speaking with a child. “How about I go see if Gloria is up?”
“No.”
Frankie recoils at my tone.
“I’m fine.” I know what I look like. What I sound like. It’s obvious she doesn’t believe me, but she helps me up anyway.
Moving slowly, fighting vertigo, I shuffle down the hall. Mitali’s door is unlocked. I open it without knocking. Faint light seeps through the blinds. Her bed is made, her room clean. I stagger into her small bathroom and find it equally pristine. Not so much as a tube of toothpaste.
IT BEGINS HERE, in Mitali’s bathroom. A rush of warmth between my legs. I touch my hand to it and find blood.
My head lightens, and I begin to shiver.
When the sac first appeared on the ultrasound screen, Dr. Singler’s face was a mask. I thought she was keeping things clinical so as to not sway my judgment, but as she frowned at the heartbeat I realized that wasn’t the case.
“It’s possible your dates are off,” she said. “Come back in two days. Just to be sure. Perhaps then we’ll have a better idea about how to proceed.”
I try to focus on my reflection in the mirror, but I can no longer see clearly. Gravity bears down on me. I reach for the sink to steady myself, but it’s no use.