The Woman in the Window

by A.J. Finn

HER HUSBAND’S ALMOST HOME. He’ll catch her this time.

What is it about that house? It’s where love goes to die.

Olivia’s bedroom and a second spare. Some nights I haunt her room like a ghost.

I press the camera to my eye and zoom in: the Today show. I might head down and switch on my own TV, I muse, watch alongside my neighbor. Or I might view it right here, on his set, through the lens. I decide to do that.

Yesterday a platoon of movers arrived, hauling sofas and television sets and an ancient armoire. The husband has been directing traffic. I haven’t seen the wife since the night they moved in. I wonder what she looks like.

“Four decades and counting,” bragged Mrs. Wasserman when we moved in. She’d dropped by to tell us (“to your faces”) how much she (“and my Henry”) resented the arrival of “another yuppie clan” in what “used to be a real neighborhood.”

The husband, however—wide shoulders, streaky brows, a blade of a nose—is on permanent display in his house: whisking eggs in the kitchen, reading in the parlor, occasionally glancing into the bedroom, as though in search of someone.

You can read all about it, if you like, in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition. DSM-5 for short. It’s always amused me, that title; it sounds like a movie franchise. Liked Mental Disorders 4? You’ll love the sequel!

Out, two, three, four; in, two, three, four—and unexpectedly it works; I’m conducted down the steps (out, two, three, four) and across a few yards of lawn (in, two, three, four). Until the panic wells within, a rising tide that swamps my sight, drowns out Dr. Fielding’s voice. And then . . . best not to think of it.

A STORM. THE ASH TREE COWERS, the limestone glowers, dark and damp. I remember dropping a glass onto the patio once; it burst like a bubble, merlot flaring across the ground and flooding the veins of the stonework, black and bloody, crawling toward my feet.

A PEACH was mixed in with my Granny Smiths in this morning’s FreshDirect delivery. I wonder how that happened.

IN THE front parlor of number 210, the Takeda boy draws his bow across the cello. Farther east, the four Grays flee the rain, charging up their front steps, laughing. Across the park, Alistair Russell fills a glass at the kitchen tap.

“Lavender,” Ethan volunteers. “I thought so.” I inhale. “I lav lovender.” Try again. “I love lavender.”

“Good,” he says, as though Wednesday is a day particularly suitable for aerobic activity. He’s never met Bina. I can’t picture them together; they don’t seem to occupy the same dimension.

And I know—I wince as I think it—I know I’m not taking them as or when I should, not always. The double doses, the skipped doses, the drunk doses . . . Dr. Fielding would be furious. I need to do better. Don’t want to lose my grip. Command-Q, and I’m out of Excel. Time for that drink.

I swing my camera west: Two pedestrians loiter outside the double-wide, one of them pointing at the shutters. “Good bones,” I imagine him saying. God. I’m inventing conversations now.

She exhales. A perfect wreath of smoke wobbles through the air. “Do it again,” I say, in spite of myself. She does. I’m drunk, I realize.

My head is quaking; my hands are shaking. I find a travel-size tube of Advil hidden in the back of my desk drawer, toss three capsules down my throat. The expiration date came and went nine months ago. Children have been conceived and born in that time, I reflect. Whole lives created. I swallow a fourth, just in case.

“True or false: You’re this tough on your husband.” “Not strictly true.” He snorted. “Something can’t be ‘strictly true,’” he said. “It’s either true or it isn’t. It’s either real or it’s not.” “Quite true,” I answered.

Four tones, long and unhurried, then a generic recorded greeting: “We’re sorry. The person you have called . . .” A woman’s voice—always a woman. Maybe we sound more apologetic.

“That’s . . . there’s been no scream here, I can promise you that.” I hear him chuckle, watch him lean against the wall.

Something’s happening to me, through me, something dangerous and new. It’s taken root, a poison tree; it’s grown, fanning out, vines winding round my gut, my lungs, my heart.

My hand sketches hieroglyphs on the glass. I clear my eyes and read them. Over and over, across the door, I’ve written Jane Russell’s name.

These aren’t antibiotics. Besides, I’ve been mixing my medicines for almost a year, and take a look at me now.

Two typos. More than two glasses of wine. That’s a pretty decent batting average, I think. “Pretty damn decent,” I say to myself, sipping again.

“What would you call a horse, Mom?” “Don’t you want to call me Mommy?” “Okay.” “Okay?” “Okay, Mommy.”

Space had opened up beside us, beneath us, a vast chasm gutted from the land below, a huge bowl of nothing; thatched evergreens at the bottom of the void, rags of mist caught in midair. We were so close to the edge of the road that it felt like floating. We could peer into the well of the world.

A flush sunrises in my cheeks. This is what’s become of me. This is who I am. If it weren’t for the drugs, I’d scream until the windows shattered.

We’ve aged, the house and I. We’ve decayed.

Something nibbles at my brain. I grasp at it, lose it.

The house was a war zone, a minefield, air-kisses popping at every step, cannon-fire laughter, backslaps like bombs.

“No, you—you’re confused.” Now he’s shaking his head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s what . . .” He stops. “That’s what my dad says,” he finishes.

I feel as though I’ve captured a pawn. I’m the Thinking Machine. I drink deeper still. I’m the Drinking Machine.

And I stand there in the dark: cold, utterly alone, full of fear and something that feels like longing.

I study them. Count them. Brush them into my cupped hand. Scatter them upon the tabletop. Bring one to my lips. No—not yet.

I’ve filled his bowl with a few days’ worth of food, just so he doesn’t— The doorbell rings.

“How fucking stupid are you?” I say nothing. He glares. “I asked you a question,” he says. “How fucking stupid—” “Very,” I say. “Very what?” “Very stupid.” “Who was?” “I was.” “Very fucking stupid.” “Yes.”

I close my eyes. And I open them. And I step into the light.