In the Night Wood. Dale Bailey

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       6

      Erin, on the other hand, riding a smooth Xanax wave, set up in the dining room of the residence: sketchbook, pencils, and art gum erasers arrayed across the table. And Lissa’s photo, of course. She flipped through the pages of the sketchbook. Lissa and Lissa again. Page after page of Lissa. Erin had been an attorney once, trafficking in matters of ultimate finality: wills and estates, the complexities of the human heart, fear and love, envy, hunger, loathing, and desire. Families in grief and horror, families shattered, divided against themselves: the territory of ambiguity, the kingdom of the gray.

      She’d closed her practice after the accident. She could no longer stomach the work. She lived in binary now.

      Ones and zeros.

      Before and after.

      With every passing day, the before was increasingly lost, bleached out by time and grief and the medication that did not salve the pain but only dulled it.

      The after didn’t matter.

      She turned to a clean page, tapped a pencil against her teeth.

      Mrs. Ramsden — Helen — put down a tray at Erin’s elbow: strong coffee, cream. Already, she’d mastered their tastes.

      “Thank you, Helen.”

      “You’re quite welcome, ma’am.” And then, turning back at the doorway: “I wonder if I might have a word with you.”

      Erin looked up. “Of course.”

      “It’s just …” Mrs. Ramsden approached the table. She picked up the photograph, stared at it for a moment, put it down. “I wanted to say how sorry I am for your loss.”

      “My loss?”

      “It’s a small place, ma’am. There are few secrets here.”

      Erin put down the pencil. She bit her lower lip. “I suppose so.”

      “If there’s anything I can do. If you want to talk …”

      “That’s very kind of you.”

      Mrs. Ramsden smiled.

      “I don’t want to talk,” Erin said. She reached out and turned the photo facedown on the table. She tried to say it kindly: “I just want to be alone.”

      “If I’ve overstepped —”

      “No, Helen, please. I just — I can’t talk about it.”

      “I understand, ma’am,” Mrs. Ramsden said. She nodded, slipped back into the kitchen.

      Erin reached into her pocket for another Xanax, swallowed it with a sip of coffee, waited for it to unspool in her bloodstream. She stared at the blank page. After a time — she couldn’t say how long, the minutes had slipped away on the Xanax tide — she picked up her pencil and began to draw. She didn’t think, simply let her hand follow its own imperative. She might have been drawing in her sleep.

      She supposed she’d gotten just what she wanted. She’d never felt so alone.