It is a night in late November. Clo is in her basement suite on the east side of Vancouver, mid-bedtime-routine. In the den the TV is turned to news coverage of the city\u2019s homelessness crisis; she is in the bathroom, listening abstractedly. She hums to herself as she ties her hair back, plucks an eyebrow, removes her earrings. They\u2019re plain hoop earrings she\u2019s been wearing for years\u2014not because she likes them, but because Maggie gave her the original thumb-tack piercings on her tenth birthday and something needs to keep those punctures open. <\/p>\n
As she brushes her teeth, she becomes conscious of it: a wrongness. The way the mouth feels when there\u2019s corn between the molars, but the wrongness isn\u2019t in her mouth. <\/p>\n
Clo thinks again of her tenth birthday. She, Maggie and their mother had been living in a duplex at the time. It was the kind of neighborhood in which dogs barked at night and drunken voices told them to fuck off. Their mother didn\u2019t work much; she\u2019d been in a car accident. She got migraines. Every week they went to the food bank and took what they could get, and when they ran out they ate macaroni. For their birthdays, though, their mother always went out to a confectionary and bought a cupcake, a careful masterpiece of pink and blue icing. Then she stuffed it full of candles. <\/p>\n
Clo remembers everything about that day clearly. She remembers sitting eagerly at the dining table, the rain at the windows; remembers the pain radiating from the two points of her earlobes; and she remembers how, slow as a waltz, the Happy Birthday began. <\/p>\n
At first it was only her mother\u2019s full, high voice. Then Maggie joined with her pubescent quavering. And then, finally, there entered that other throat, that deeper, scratchier throat that made Clo shiver.<\/p>\n
Standing in her bathroom, Clo freezes with the toothbrush in her mouth. Why is she remembering a deep voice? <\/p>\n
The news is still on in the living room; Clo turns it off and concentrates. She sees the memory play out: the song quieting as her mother sets the cupcake in front of her, her blowing out all the candles at once, easily, her looking up and seeing a room full of smoke\u2014and through it, a broad-shouldered figure across the table. <\/p>\n
A man. <\/p>\n
A man wearing a maroon cardigan and holding himself like a spider: motionless, waiting. <\/p>\n
Clo almost chokes on her toothpaste.
\n<\/p>\n
For the last three years Clo has helped coordinate the volunteers and settlement mentors at the Immigrant Services Society. She\u2019d started as a mentor herself, liking the idea of welcoming anxious foreigners at airports, explaining public transit, learning greetings in Hindi, Mandarin, Filipino. But the required level of affability and social finesse was beyond her; she was no good at making people feel at home. <\/p>\n
That Monday, she\u2019s barely touched her seat when she sees Jaspreet winging his way towards her. <\/p>\n
Since he started at the office a week ago, he has brought Clo coffee from the machine every morning. Clo doesn\u2019t drink coffee, but she hadn\u2019t refused the first time. <\/p>\n
\u201cGood morning, Clothilde.\u201d <\/p>\n
Along with coffee, Jaspreet has also been trying to guess her full name. Clora? Clotille? All he knows for sure is that it isn\u2019t Chloe. <\/p>\n
\u201cFirst hoarfrost of the season! Helped a couple from Mumbai other day, wouldn\u2019t want to be them now. Brr.\u201d Jaspreet sets her mug down and gives her a concerned look. \u201cSay, that was rough last week, you doing okay?\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Friday, Clo lost a pile of case notes and for the first time on the job the boss yelled at her. That Jaspreet has remembered this over the weekend causes her to shift in her seat. Before he can say anything more, her phone rings and she seizes it mid-tone. \u201cImmigrant Services.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are raccoons in the house!\u201d screams a voice on the other end. \u201cRaccoons!\u201d <\/p>\n
Clo flashes Jaspreet an apologetic look. \u201cGo on,\u201d she says into the receiver.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are in our basement! They have toileted the carpet! They have pulled the\u2014the stuff from the walls!\u201d The woman\u2019s accent is thick, Slavic, Clo thinks, and there is yelling in the background.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you leave a window open?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes. Maybe. Please, they have messes everywhere!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay,\u201d says Clo. \u201cThis happens in Canada. Sometimes.\u201d She pauses, remembering. \u201cWhen I was a kid, a raccoon got under our porch and someone from Animal Control had to coax it out; I can give you their number.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cYes fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShut your basement windows from now on, okay? If you leave them an opening, they will come back inside.\u201d<\/p>\n
The woman repeats the phrase back to her. If you leave them an opening they will come inside.<\/em><\/p>\n Clo freezes. <\/p>\n \u201cHello?\u201d says the woman. \u201cThe number? Hello?\u201d<\/p>\n The man hadn\u2019t been from Animal Control. Animal Control sent men in blue vests with nets and trapping kits, not men in wool cardigans. <\/p>\n Clo closes her eyes. In the memory, she can see the man from the shoulders down. He\u2019s in ironed blue jeans and shoes of chestnut leather, stooping, placing a jar of peanut butter on the lawn. His hands are pale; as he stands, they clench and unclench slowly, as though pumping something. He steps back, goes still. An immense patience organizes the scene\u2014a sense of infinite time, infinite waiting. The raccoon pokes its head out from beneath the porch, nose twitching. The man leans forward\u2014<\/p>\n Suddenly Clo becomes aware of her office again. The phone has gone dead in her hand, and someone is standing over her.<\/p>\n Jaspreet. <\/p>\n \u201cClo?\u201d he\u2019s saying. \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong? Can I get you some water? Clo?\u201d <\/p>\n The memories keep coming over the week; the man seems to have been everywhere in the months just after her tenth birthday. <\/p>\n He is behind school yard fences, staring in as she and Maggie fight.<\/p>\n He is in the social worker\u2019s office, watching her with folded hands. <\/p>\n He is at her mother\u2019s funeral, standing over the empty coffin. <\/p>\n At times it makes Clo\u2019s heart race with anticipation. She is discovering a great secret about herself: she knows this man, she must. And yet Clo can\u2019t recall his face. It makes her nervous, makes her excitement feel like some sort of trick. No matter how she concentrates, his face seems to be outside her mind.<\/p>\n By the end of the week, Clo is worried enough to call her sister.<\/p>\n Once, she and Maggie had been close\u2014shared a bed, lollipops, secrets. When Clo got lice and their mother wanted to shave her head, unable to afford medicated shampoo, Maggie shaved her own to show that Clo didn\u2019t need to be scared. But that was before her tenth birthday. Before Maggie began to act out, make dangerous friends, tease Clo\u2019s introversion. Now Clo can\u2019t stand that cigarette-raw voice. <\/p>\n There are twenty minutes left of calling hours at Mission Institute minimum security when Maggie comes on the line. <\/p>\n \u201cJesus, you\u2019ve got bad timing, Sis. I was bluffing my way with a pair of sevens for a pot of, well\u2014\u201d Maggie snorts and declines to say what they are betting on. \u201cSo what\u2019s new? You still seeing that guy with the lip ring?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe broke up in May. He was too…\u201d Clo can\u2019t find a way to finish the sentence. \u201cHe wanted to move in with me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow awful.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cListen,\u201d Clo says. \u201cSorry it\u2019s been so long. I called because… Actually, I need to ask you about that night.\u201d<\/p>\n Maggie\u2019s tone is suddenly wary. \u201cThat night.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cMy tenth birthday,\u201d Clo says, though Maggie knows. \u201cI\u2019m trying to remember something.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUh-huh.\u201d<\/p>\n Clo hesitates. \u201cIt\u2019s dumb, I know, but was somebody else there with us? Visiting I mean. A relative of Mom\u2019s? Maybe you remember… a guy in a maroon cardigan?\u201d<\/p>\n There is a pause. <\/p>\n \u201cClo, what the hell is this all about?\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cJust answer, Maggie.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cMom didn\u2019t have relatives. That\u2019s why we ended up in foster care after that night, dummy.\u201d<\/p>\n Silence.<\/p>\n \u201cOh my God,\u201d says Maggie, sucking her breath in. \u201cYou aren\u2019t over it. You aren\u2019t fucking over it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s not what this is.\u201d <\/p>\n Maggie snorts. \u201cYou know why I\u2019m in here, Clo, and you\u2019re out there?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBecause you assaulted a police offer, for starters.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBecause I dealt with my shit. Anger, hate\u2014got it all out. You are still holding onto it all; I did what it fucking took.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s one way of justifying it.\u201d<\/p>\n Maggie gives a deep, put-on sigh. \u201c\u2018Give ye no foothold to the devil,\u2019 Clo.\u201d It\u2019s what their mother used to say, whenever they stole cookies or lied. Maggie is mocking her. <\/p>\n Clo ends the call.<\/p>\n No<\/em>, she thinks. No fucking foothold. <\/em><\/p>\n A week later, the man in the cardigan is in memories of her early twenties. Clo remembers him at old waitressing jobs, sitting quietly at corner tables; remembers him at parties she\u2019s otherwise forgotten; remembers him beside her in the theatre. <\/p>\n In particular, Clo remembers him at a cafe she had once frequented. He sat by the window, two tables away from her. In this memory, Clo can see his face for the first time.<\/p>\n He looks her age, about twenty-four, twenty-five. His cheeks and brow are pale, the same luminous pearl of his hands, and his skin is so taught that his eyes seem to pop. They look about the cafe, eel-like, as though glancing up from the deep, and Clo gets the sense of a sadness behind them. Framed in the window against the downtown traffic, he looks just the saddest thing in the world. Clo wants to put a hand on his shoulder, to hug him, to look into his eyes. <\/p>\n In the memory, she wants him. <\/p>\n Clo decides to be strategic. She makes a list:<\/p>\n 1)\tresearch memory\/hallucinations<\/p>\n 2)\tfind shrink<\/p>\n 3)\ttalk to Maggie again<\/p>\n 4)\tcheck memories against photos\/diary <\/p>\n A moment later, Clo is digging out a box from the closet under her stairs. Inside are the only mementos she\u2019s kept\u2014pictures, school drawings, old Christmas cards. There is also a grey, sad-looking book with the title, \u201cDon\u2019t You Dare Read This Maggie.\u201d Her grief journal. One of her first counselors had made her keep it.<\/p>\n She opens it at random.<\/p>\n I had the cupcake there. I had it, it was full of candles. In one go I got them all. Why couldn\u2019t I have wished for mom to stay? <\/em><\/p>\n Her ten-year-old script is difficult to read; each letter is stabbed onto the page, as though she had held the pencil in a fist. It\u2019s all rage. There are page-long sentences of her hate of Maggie, her hate of her counselor, her hate of the world. Nothing yet about the man in the cardigan.<\/p>\n People keep saying it will get better. I don\u2019t want it to get better. Even if god makes me the richest person in the world, even if he gives mom back, it\u2019s too late. I want it not to have happened at all. If he\u2019s going to make it right he has to make it right from the beginning. <\/em><\/p>\n Clo frowns. This word, \u201cbeginning,\u201d is underlined twice. She remembers doing that. She remembers exactly where she was\u2014one of those generic lobbies outside the counselor\u2019s office with chairs lined against a blank wall, voices sounding from behind doors. <\/p>\n At that moment, the irreparability of things had shown itself. Her mother was gone for good, and here she was suffering. More than that: here she would always be. Nothing could change the fact that she was hurting now, and as she grew up, became a woman, became old, far back in the past and getting farther she would still be there, in pain. How she\u2019d wanted to scream.<\/p>\n But she hadn\u2019t. Because, just then, she had felt that arm stretch out from nowhere and rest comfortingly on her shoulder. <\/p>\n A gentle arm, in the sleeve of a wool cardigan the color of russet apples and autumn leaves.<\/p>\n \u201cHello, Clo,\u201d the man had said. <\/p>\n It was the voice from her birthday party: deep, full of sand. Clo sat with her grief journal closed on her lap. <\/p>\n \u201cI think you are sad, Clo.\u201d<\/p>\n A pause.<\/p>\n \u201cI think you are angry.\u201d<\/p>\n In her basement suite, Clo shuts her eyes. She needs to remember exactly what he said. It is important. <\/p>\n She hears, \u201cI can…\u201d <\/p>\n Yes, yes, can what? Clo strains.<\/p>\n \u201cI can…\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s no good, it was too long ago. Clo shuts the journal and feels the pressure of tears just behind her eyes.<\/p>\n It is late December. Clo smokes two packs a day now. She takes showers that use up all the hot water. And she loses sleep: she wakes up at the edge of the bed, almost falling off, as though her body were making room for somebody. Phone calls from unregistered numbers set her heart beating. Nocturnal scratching at her suite door, which she knows can only be raccoons, makes her think of house-breakers, stalkers, dark things wanting to get inside. <\/p>\n Something is happening, Clo knows it in her gut\u2014but none of this seems to count as evidence. <\/p>\n On Thursday, when Clo arrives at work the office is buzzing. A major donor has passed away, leaving a substantial legacy fund to the Society, and treasury has just broken the news by offering to buy whatever fancy drinks people want. Jaspreet is going around collecting orders.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd for dear Clover?\u201d He leans against her desk, arms crossed. \u201cA grande latte with caramel drizzle for our office coffee fiend?\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cCoffee?\u201d she says, before she realizes who she\u2019s talking to. \u201cI\u2019ve always been more of a tea drinker.\u201d <\/p>\n Then she glances at him, mortified.<\/p>\n Jaspreet\u2019s eyebrows shoot up. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n But he\u2019s grinning. Suddenly she\u2019s grinning too. He starts laughing, great seal-like bleats that turn heads in their desks, and Clo can\u2019t help it, she joins in. They must laugh a whole minute. It\u2019s the best Clo has felt in a long time, all tension is relaxed, and suddenly she\u2019s embarrassed by the release. She looks down at her desk.<\/p>\n \u201cChai latte it is,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The next day, Jaspreet adapts his morning courtesy: tea waits for Clo on her desk, and there is a note beside the mug. How about a Rumpelstiltskin wager. If I guess your name by the end of the day, you must let me take you to dinner. <\/em><\/p>\n Clo sips her tea and considers it. <\/p>\n It has been over half a year since she\u2019s been on a date. Her last was with Grey Dawkins, all the way back in May. She hadn\u2019t really known what to feel about Grey; she liked him, and yet she found herself shying away from his advances, as a swimmer does from an underwater shape warbling into view. He\u2019d driven her to a \u201csecret\u201d lake an hour outside the city, where the sun was out and they could lie beside each other on the hot sand. They were so near the water that little waves lapped at their toes, and as Grey rolled on top of her Clo remembers the tickling scratch of his wool cardigan on her bare skin.<\/p>\n Clo frowns. Of course, she\u2019d been misremembering\u2014it was the man. It\u2019d been him on top of her, not Grey.<\/p>\n She remembers how his water-darkened hair came off his forehead and sent droplets onto her cheeks. He was so near. She could see the line in his eyes where the irises ended and the pupils began, and the striation gave the effect of the aquamarine blue rushing into the black pit of his pupil. But all at once she was not paying attention to his eyes, because the two of them were… <\/p>\n kissing.<\/p>\n Clo relaxes her lips, feeling that kiss, then takes another sip of tea. It\u2019s over-steeped now and she gets up to throw the bag away. Halfway to the waste bin, she stops. <\/p>\n \u201cFuck,\u201d she says aloud.<\/p>\n She\u2019d believed it for a moment.<\/p>\n She knew well she\u2019d been with Grey in May, not the man. But she\u2019d sat there, remembering that beach, believing he\u2019d been there. Believing he was real. <\/p>\n No\u2014worse.<\/p>\n Wanting him<\/em> to be real.<\/p>\n A minute later, Clo has left a note on Jaspreet\u2019s desk\u2014No help from H<\/em>R\u2014and her day begins to fill up with the ping of new texts. <\/p>\n Clochette?<\/p>\n Cloud<\/p>\n Cloelia!<\/p>\n Cleopatra…?<\/em><\/p>\n It is one long string of wrong guesses, and it gives her the giddy sense of evading fire by standing still. At day\u2019s end, as people put on their coats and wish each other good weekends, Jaspreet isn\u2019t even close. He sends her one last desperate text, and Clo finds herself unable to disappoint him.<\/p>\n \u201cEvening, Clorinda,\u201d Jaspreet says when he picks her up from her suite. <\/p>\n Clo is silent most of the drive. She is wearing a knee length skirt and has done her hair to cover her ears and forehead; she couldn\u2019t find her earrings and she feels naked without them. <\/p>\n Jaspreet takes her to a pizzeria owned by a family friend. At first he seems nervous, apologizing several times for his gear shift, which makes a crunching sound like a back breaking. But at dinner he\u2019s relaxed\u2014so relaxed, Clo finds her own posture changing. She\u2019s laughing genuinely, leaning forward into the conversation. Somehow, they get talking about insomnia; it turns out the both of them share the affliction. \u201cI\u2019m an idiot: twenty-eight years old and I still haven\u2019t figured out how to fall asleep!\u201d says Jaspreet, and Clo finds herself describing the visualization exercises a therapist gave her once to get her mind off worry-loops. Imagine a hand trying to slip out from a glove without help. Imagine a hole trying to swallow another hole. Jaspreet slaps his knees laughing, and Clo notices he does not ask about why she\u2019d been seeing a therapist.<\/p>\n When their plates are cleared, they recline in a put-on languor and Jaspreet looks past her, sheepish. \u201cI have a confession,\u201d he says. \u201cI checked with HR about your name.\u201d<\/p>\n Clo goes red.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought it was really sweet,\u201d he says quickly. \u201cYou pretending. To let me take you here.\u201d<\/p>\n She looks down at her napkin.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t ask them what it was, only what it wasn\u2019t. I just couldn\u2019t accept you were a Clorinda.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cNo? I\u2019m flattered.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI did, however, ask HR about something else. I hope you don\u2019t mind.\u201d <\/p>\n He\u2019s grinning now, looking at something behind her. Clo turns. Three employees stand there, one of them holding a cupcake. Before she can say anything, they\u2019ve begun singing Happy Birthday. <\/p>\n Clo\u2019s eyes grow wide. She checks her phone: December Twenty Nine. She\u2019d forgotten.<\/p>\n Happy birthday to you…<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cJaspreet,\u201d she hisses, snapping her head back to him. <\/p>\n Happy birthday to you…<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cJaspreet!\u201d<\/p>\n Happy birthday dear Clorinda…<\/em><\/p>\n She stands, and his face falls; before they can finish the last line, he makes a gesture at the singers and they cease. Jaspreet shoos them back to the kitchen, and the customers who joined in or who just turned to watch go back to their meals. <\/p>\n Jaspreet gets up and touches her hand. \u201cI\u2019m very sorry. Isn\u2019t it your birthday?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt is.\u201d<\/p>\n When she says nothing more, Jaspreet offers to bring her home. <\/p>\n A hot glow radiates from Clo\u2019s cheeks the whole drive back; she\u2019s sure he can feel it. She\u2019s kept her napkin from the pizzeria and folds it endlessly in random patterns on her lap. When Jaspreet pulls up to the curb outside her suite, he turns off the engine and gives her a quick glance. <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t celebrate my birthday,\u201d she says after a moment. <\/p>\n Jaspreet nods.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s… the anniversary of a bad day.\u201d<\/p>\n He looks at her, encouraging her to go on. <\/p>\n The idea sets her heart racing: she could. She could tell Jaspreet about that night; his long face and his patient, equine eyes lean in, and she knows it would be safe. <\/p>\n \u201cWhatever\u2019s wrong, Clo, I want to know.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2014\u201d she hesitates. \u201cThank you for a nice night; I\u2019m sorry I wrecked it.\u201d And she opens the car door.<\/p>\n How many times has Clo spoken a No, wanting to speak a Yes? A friend once said to her, \u201cYour antisocial behavior is actually a longing for relationship. You want social contact to happen in spite of you, as though that were evidence it\u2019s worth something. That\u2019s messed up.\u201d <\/p>\n Maybe so. Maybe she wants a man without all the fuss of having to seduce him, or however it is supposed to work. Maybe the psychologists are right and she has never learned \u201cattachment.\u201d Maybe she isn\u2019t designed for love and connection; is not, in fact, a person, only a moving, thinking gap shaped like a person.<\/p>\n Making tea in her apartment, Clo longs for a warm body, longs until the craving grows specific: she wants the man in the cardigan. She wants to dance with him again.<\/p>\n They\u2019d danced together recently, she recalls. The rain\u2019s soft paws were at the window, and outside the streets were dark. He\u2019d turned the radio on to The Police. He was so at ease, so in his element; the sort of quality you sense in an old tree. He had an arm resting on her waist, and his chest pivoted away from her. They swayed. <\/p>\n I\u2019ll be<\/p>\n wrapped around your finger<\/p>\n I\u2019ll be<\/p>\n wrapped around your finger<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI can make everything right again,\u201d he\u2019d whispered to her. \u201cI can make it all right from the beginning…\u201d Those words\u2014he had said them to her before, a hundred times; she knew them by heart. <\/p>\n Clo frowns suddenly. The memory feels so intimate, so near, a presence just around some corner in time. Where is it they were dancing? <\/p>\n Her breath catches<\/p>\n It was her basement suite. <\/p>\n \u201cYou have to let me talk to her!\u201d Clo screams at the prison secretary. \u201cIt\u2019s a family emergency!\u201d <\/p>\n Perhaps it\u2019s the desperation in her voice: a minute later, Maggie is on the other end. <\/p>\n \u201cJesus, Clo. What the hell.\u201d<\/p>\n The way that Clo explains it to her, there is something wrong with her memory. A kind of amnesia: she knew a man and now she forgets who he is. She finds herself unable to say the words: an evil man. She finds herself unable to say: I think I am in love with him. She is too embarrassed by it all, by the way she\u2019s been indulging it, nursing it; by the way it all seems to be, when she spells it out for her sister, so much a fantasy<\/em>. <\/p>\n \u201cMaggie,\u201d Clo says. \u201cYou have to help me remember properly.\u201d<\/p>\n Maggie sighs, and the two of them go over the whole nightmare once more\u2014how, after dessert, their mother had gone out for cigarette filters; how she\u2019d winked at them before she shut the door, and Maggie had gone to turn on the porch light for her, since it was dark out; how an hour later, she still hadn\u2019t come back, and Clo had wanted to call the police and Maggie wouldn\u2019t let her, not until another hour had passed; how Maggie had finally made the call, how she had talked so calmly with the operator on the other end, and how Clo had screamed and screamed.<\/p>\n \u201cI did?\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cYou screamed so much. You wouldn\u2019t stop screaming.\u201d <\/p>\n Clo considers. \u201cAnd then?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat more do you want to know? You remember the weeks of searching, the social workers, the counselors, the fake funeral for \u2018closure.\u2019 There wasn\u2019t any man, Clo. I remember it all pretty damn clearly.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the thing, Maggie. I do too.\u201d<\/p>\n Clo sips her tea; it has gone tepid. <\/p>\n \u201cI reread my grief journal the other day,\u201d she says in a whisper. \u201cI hated you for not being angrier, after it happened. I accused you of being glad to be free of Mom. Now you could steal shit and be a brat and do all the things you\u2019d wanted to do before but couldn\u2019t.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cJesus, Clo.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cYou know what I thought? I thought if I stayed mad, stayed hateful, I could make something happen. Make God give her back.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGod?\u201d<\/p>\n Clo laughs; it comes out as a choking sound. \u201cIt was like Mom\u2019s disappearance punched a hole in me, and I thought if I kept the wound open, she could crawl back through. But what if…\u201d<\/p>\n There is a long silence. <\/p>\n \u201cListen, Clo. They\u2019re going to cut the line. You need to relax. Take a bath, light a hundred fucking candles, I don\u2019t know. Just relax.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMaggie, what if…\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBye, Clo. And in case you think I\u2019d forgotten, Happy Birthday.\u201d<\/p>\n The line goes dead.<\/p>\n For a long time Clo stands in her kitchen with the cold tea in one hand, the phone in the other. The lights are off. On the landlord\u2019s porch above is a motion-sensing lamp; it\u2019s finicky, even moths trigger it. Clo\u2019s suite is dark enough that whenever it flicks on, it startles the kitchen with a mean electric yellow. <\/p>\n What if something else crawled through?<\/p>\n Some monster. <\/p>\n Clo pictures the man in the cardigan. She sees his dark hair, his pale skin, his wide cerulean eyes. <\/p>\n If it\u2019s true, though, how would she be able to tell? We are our memories; when those are tampered with, what else do we have to check our identity against? As soon as the monster invades it would be as though he has always been there, and there\u2019d be nothing to signal an intrusion, no way of knowing better. <\/p>\n But she knows better. So it can\u2019t be happening, can it?<\/p>\n That\u2019s when she hears the knock.<\/p>\n Clo has been living alone for so long in her basement suite that a knock itself is unusual, a knock itself could startle her; but this knock is at midnight. <\/p>\n She goes very still.<\/p>\n Another knock: three quick raps. Nothing contains more human intensity than that thin, knuckles-on-wood sound. <\/p>\n Clo holds up her phone. Jaspreet would come if she called him. She brings his number up and hovers her thumb over the call button. Then, very slowly, hardly breathing, she creeps to the peephole and presses an eye against it. Before she can get a good look, she is startled back by a voice on the other side.<\/p>\n \u201cClo?\u201d<\/p>\n A man\u2019s voice, low, stony, familiar. <\/p>\n \u201cHello?\u201d she says. \u201cWho are you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cClo, it\u2019s me!\u201d<\/p>\n Slowly, Clo presses against the peephole again. The porch-light above her suite is still on and there is light enough to make out a shape. No, not quite a shape; something in the process of taking a shape. Perhaps it is the warp of the peephole itself, but for a moment the shadows cast by the porch light seem to gather and tighten just behind the door like an indrawn cloak. The force of Clo\u2019s grip on the door handle hurts her hand.<\/p>\n Clo blinks and a man stands there, wearing a chestnut cardigan.<\/p>\n Her heart is a coin flipping in the air, undecided between fear and hope. The difference means nothing to the heart, both quicken the pulse; to Clo, the difference is everything.<\/p>\n Who are you?<\/em> <\/p>\n \u201cClo?\u201d He sounds hurt, offended. \u201cI can see you moving in the peephole. Why is the door padlocked?\u201d <\/p>\n Answer me!<\/em> she wants to shout. What do you want?<\/em> All she can do is stand still, her lips locked and her throat too tight to use, as the man\u2019s question hunts through the cracks in the door for a response. <\/p>\n When he speaks again, his voice is faint. \u201cWhat are your earrings doing out on the patio table?\u201d <\/p>\n Clo\u2019s mind goes to her ears automatically, sensing the undecorated lobes. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never seen you go anywhere without your earrings. Is… Is something going on?\u201d And then he says her name. <\/p>\n Not \u201cClo.\u201d Her name.<\/p>\n Clo\u2019s heart skips. No one knows her name, only her and Maggie\u2014and this man. This man, with whom she\u2019s lived almost a whole life. <\/p>\n \u201cCloris?\u201d <\/p>\n Clo\u2019s phone is in her hand; she could still call Jaspreet. His number is still on her screen. But her thumb, with the rest of her, is stuck. <\/p>\n \u201cListen,\u201d the man says. \u201cI know that you\u2019re confused. Angry. Maybe even scared.\u201d<\/p>\n Doesn\u2019t she have memories of the two of them, even from last week? Hadn\u2019t they taken a walk together on Kitsilano beach last Saturday?<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I know that you\u2019re lonely. You\u2019ve been lonely so long, you\u2019ve almost forgotten what anything else feels like. I can make it so I\u2019ve always been there with you.\u201d<\/p>\n Hadn\u2019t they gone for a night drive a few days ago, a drive out of the city and along the coast, as they often did to decompress from the week\u2019s work?<\/p>\n \u201cLet me inside. I can make it right from the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n She sees them all clearly now, all her memories of him illuminating the deep-water darkness of her life with mesmerizing color. And now here he is, the very one who explains the absence she feels daily, who fits it like a glove.<\/p>\n Why does the heart move so much faster than the mind? Before Clo can help herself, she is opening the door. Her body sweats and trembles and tells her to run the other way; but she wants him. She wants to press her cheek against the familiar curve of his chest, to breathe him in, to be held. And\u2014now there he is. He stands tall at her threshold, back-lit by the neighbo\u2019s porch-light. It\u2019s as though he\u2019s come infinite distances to be here, come darting and drifting through the long spaces of the cosmos. His eyes contain a great predatory patience. They lock on hers. <\/p>\n The light flicks off on the porch above.<\/p>\n Patrick Doerksen is a graduate of the 2017 Clarion Workshop in San Diego and his fiction and poetry has appeared in Aurealis, Abyss and Apex, Pantheon, and the Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, among others. A story of his was selected for Penguin Canada\u2019s Journey Prize Anthology, 2017. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It is a night in late November. Clo is in her basement suite on the east side of Vancouver, mid-bedtime-routine. In the den the TV is turned to news coverage of the city\u2019s homelessness crisis; she is in the bathroom, listening abstractedly. She hums to herself as she ties her hair back, plucks an eyebrow, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64223,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,19717],"tags":[19718],"class_list":["post-131492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-tcl-27-spring-2018","tag-the-colored-lens-27-spring-2018","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/64223"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131492"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132870,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131492\/revisions\/132870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=131492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=131492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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