The Nothing Man

by Catherine Ryan Howard

the real source of my anxiety, the thing that has an angry red flush flaring up my neck, is the possibility that, at any moment, the penny will drop, and you’ll frown and cock your head and look at me, really look at me, and say, “Wait, aren’t you the girl who . . . ?” This is always my fear when I meet someone new, because I am. I am the girl who. I was twelve years old when a man broke into our home and murdered my mother, father, and younger sister, Anna, seven years old then and forever.

fiction only really worked if it was built like a lattice through which you were repeatedly offered glimpses of absolute truth.

My pulse pounded in my ears. Because I, too, had once found a rope and a knife beneath a couch cushion. But I’d never told anyone about it. It was shortly before the attack, maybe mere days.

These were made-for-TV American movies based on infamous American crimes, for some reason available to rent on VHS in Ireland.

The general rule in our house was that so long as you were being quiet, whatever else you were being wouldn’t be queried.

This was Ireland at the turn of the millennium. Our police force didn’t carry guns.

Even if you were already falling, you were technically okay until you hit the ground.