The Woman in the Window

by A.J. Finn

I have a feeling that inside you somewhere, there’s something nobody knows about. —Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

Behold my southern empire and its subjects. None of these people were my friends; most of them I’d not met more than once or twice. Urban life, I suppose.

This is classic therapist argot: It sounds to me. What I’m hearing. I think you’re saying. We’re interpreters. We’re translators.

“Sometimes I’ve got too many thoughts at once. It’s like there’s a four-way intersection in my brain where everyone’s trying to go at the same time.”

I’m not invisible. I’m not dead. I’m alive, and on display, and ashamed. I think of Dr. Brulov in Spellbound: “My dear girl, you cannot keep bumping your head against reality and saying it is not there.”

“The world is a beautiful place,” she insists, and she’s serious; her gaze is even, her voice level. Her eyes catch mine, hold them. “Don’t forget that.” She reclines, mashing her cigarette into the hollow of the bowl. “And don’t miss it.”

His suit clings to him with a sort of desperation, unequal to the task but trying its damnedest.

I want to feel this. I want to feel. I am so sick of shadows.

Don’t you get lonely up here? Bogey had asked Bacall, asked me. I was born lonely, she’d answered. I wasn’t. I was made lonely.

More than that: I was deluded. More than that: I was responsible. Am responsible. If I dream things when I’m awake, I’m going out of my mind. That was it. Gaslight.

I’ve waited for my family to return; they won’t. I’ve waited for my depression to lift; it wouldn’t, not without my help. I’ve waited to rejoin the world. Now is the time.

She’s right: I did this on a roof in the rain. I was fighting for my life. So I must not want to die. And if I don’t want to die, I’ve got to start living.