The Woman in the Window

by A.J. Finn

As a doctor, I say that the sufferer seeks an environment she can control. Such is the clinical take. As a sufferer (and that is the word), I say that agoraphobia hasn’t ravaged my life so much as become it.

For a moment I think it’s Ethan’s company—he’s soft-spoken and easy; even the cat approves—but then I realize that I’m reverting to analyst mode, to the seesaw give-and-take of Q&A. Curiosity and compassion: the tools of my trade.

“I shouldn’t have. Gone outside.” “Why not? You a vampire?” Practically, I think, appraising my arm—fish-belly white. “I’m agoraphobic?” I say.

Midway through graduate school, I met a seven-year-old boy afflicted with the so-called Cotard delusion, a psychological phenomenon whereby the individual believes that he is dead.

I step to one side, away from the light. Perhaps I am a vampire after all.

Ad astra per aspera, read the inscription. Through adversity to the stars.

“My dear girl, you cannot keep bumping your head against reality and saying it is not there.”

It’s only as the pills squeeze down my throat that I remember I already took them this morning.

“I miss how for the longest time you thought the word misled was pronounced ‘mizzled.’” “Misleading little word. It mizzled me.”

“I may do some good before I am dead.” —Jude, Part Sixth, Chapter 1.

Shaw also said, alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.

Some nights she ferried herself from Ed’s bed to my own and back again; he called her Pong, after that Atari game with a four-bit ball bouncing between two bars.

A red triangle flashes on the screen. NO EMERGENCY CALLS. SKYPE IS NOT A TELEPHONE REPLACEMENT SERVICE. “Fuck you, Skype,” I shout.

I can hear urine drilling into the bowl. Ed used to do that, pee so forcibly that it was audible even with the door closed, like he was boring a hole through the porcelain.

SO: THAT HAPPENED. I never liked that expression. Too flip. But here I am and there it is: That happened.

“The definition of insanity, Fox,” Wesley used to remind me, paraphrasing Einstein, “is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result.”

Inflation is a bitch.

“Maybe you can explain what’s wrong with this woman.” “Who says there’s anything wrong with her?” Gratitude wells within me. I feel my lungs fill. Someone’s on my side.

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.

If I dream things when I’m awake, I’m going out of my mind. That was it. Gaslight.

“To be very frank, Anna”—and

“I know you didn’t come over here to see an adult cry.” “I’ve cried in front of you,” he points out. I smile. “Fair enough.”

And what a story—what an evil story.

“How fucking stupid—” “Very,” I say. “Very what?” “Very stupid.” “Who was?” “I was.” “Very fucking stupid.” “Yes.”