When she pressed her cheek to the garage window, Clare Sanderson could see the old house on the corner.

For the past week, she watched the mailman choke the box next to the red door—struggling to stuff more envelopes inside. It was a strange thing. For a person not to check their mail. It’s not that Clare was spying on her neighbor. It’s just that when you see the mail piling up like that, it makes you think.

The mailman didn’t care. Nobody cared but Clare.

Clare didn’t like the mailman. He always looked nervous, like there was a bomb about to go off that only he knew about. And once, Clare received an envelope that had clearly been opened and carelessly taped shut. It was only junk mail, but still.

The old woman could be dead in there. In that lovely house with the stone turret. A lonely skeleton leaving nothing but questions, and mail, behind. Or she could be lying at the bottom of her stairs with a broken neck. Or peacefully watching The Price Is Right. The possibilities were endless and filled Clare with dread.

From what she had observed, the old woman lived a solitary existence. Now that Clare thought about it, she was certain she’d never seen her leave the house. Only glimpses of her blurry figure in the top window of the funny old turret and when she answered the door for the handsome guy that occasionally delivered groceries.

Never a Christmas tree in the living room window or a raking of leaves or a HI NEIGHBOR!

She really could be dead in there.

Clare’s mind turned to mummies. All wrapped up tight—enveloped for eternity in their own decomposition. Stained and gloomy bandages with insects burrowing their way inside the eye sockets. Feeding and crawling and feeding and . . .

The glass cracked beneath Clare’s cheek. She stumbled off the milk crate and fell to the cement floor.

“Fucker,” she said, to the window, as she felt a bead of blood on her cheek.

Blood. The spotting. There had been spotting this morning.

She taped up the crack on the window and put the milk crate back under Elliott’s pristine workbench.

Back in the dining room, she thought about dinner. She checked the time and thought about the old woman. What did a lonely old woman eat for dinner?

Whatever she wanted, of course.

For the second time that afternoon, Clare wiped down the dining room table. She thought about moving the recliner in the living room. Angling it more toward the window. Her thoughts drifted back to the old woman . . . to mummies and ravenous insects feeding on organs.

She reclined on the couch with the short story collection she’d been working through since the summer. Reading made her tired and horny, so it was slow getting through even one of the stories.

Her cellphone vibrated on the armrest behind her. It was Elliott. She was no longer horny.

“Clare, hon,” said Elliott. “This day’s going to break me, I swear to Christ.”

Clare closed her eyes. Her husband was a chronic exaggerator. Every splinter, a fatal injury.

“What’s going on today?” she sighed.

“It’s Kyle again. He’s been working here for like four years now, and I still have to remind him how to do his job. It’s ridiculous, you know? He knows what he’s doing. He just wants me to make all the decisions so if something gets screwed up, it falls right down the gutter to me. Ridiculous!”

“Yeah.”

Clare thought about something she’d read once. About how they’d remove a mummy’s brains out through the nose. They had a special tool for it. A hook built just for removing brains. She should Google it.

“Clare?”

“Huh?”

“It’s ridiculous, right? With Kyle?”

“Yeah. Very. I’m thinking Chinese for dinner. Could you pick it up on your way home?”

“Didn’t we have Chinese on Sunday?”

“They’re closed on Sundays. We had it Saturday. My usual, please. No mushrooms or water chestnuts.”

She could tell that Elliott was shaking his head on the other end of the line. Probably rolling his tongue around the inside of his cheek. He enjoyed acting incensed, to punctuate his exaggerations.

He said, “Yeah. Fine. How’s everything? Any, you know, developments?”

“No. Everything’s fine.”

“Did you ask Dr. Kaufman about bumping up your appointment?”

“She wasn’t in. I left a message,” Clare lied. “See you around six.”

Clare hung up and went back to the window in the garage.

Someone ought to check on the old woman. A wellness check, she believed it was called. An image flashed in her mind of the old woman, wrapped in gauze, mummified, resting on a slab in the basement. Clare knew there was a basement in the old house. Every house in the neighborhood had one. Every year Elliott said he was going to finish their basement. She’d never even seen him hang a picture frame.

Clare moved around some boxes beneath the workbench until she found the one labeled “Halloween.” Half-heartedly, she spread the decorations out on top of the wooden surface. She set aside the fake cobwebs and orange lights and plastic pumpkins of various sizes. The skeleton cutout was missing. He had on a top hat. Clare always got a kick out of the skeleton with the top hat. It was her absolute favorite.

Clare felt the absence of the missing skeleton. It was a silly piece of cardboard, but it had always been there, in the box. Ready to be hung by its frayed string.

She called Elliott. “Hey, I was going to put up some Halloween stuff and I can’t find my skeleton. The one with the top hat.”

“Skeleton with a top hat?” Elliott sighed.

“The one with the top hat, yes. The one that I hang it on the front door every year. He looks like he’s smiling and about to tip his hat.”

“I think you threw it out. It was falling apart, I think. Remember?”

“I wouldn’t have thrown it out.” She liked his bony attitude too much.

“Then, I don’t know, Clare. I’m sorry but I’m wicked busy right now.” He did his best to sound upset. “I love you. I’ll be home with the food soon.”

“Did you throw it out?”

Elliott’s pause confirmed Clare’s suspicion. She hung up the phone.

The skeleton’s absence added to Clare’s sense of loneliness, which had begun to settle over her like a black veil during the second IVF cycle. Deep down, before Elliott even stuck her with the booster shot, she knew it wouldn’t take. She tried the second time for him more than herself. She tried, despite the emotional and financial blow, so she wouldn’t feel like such a quitter. Such a useless, empty womb.

After three months, Clare agreed to try once more. Elliot had been persuasive, and she still wanted a child, after all. This time, she took a leave of absence from the office. The logic was that her body, particularly her reproductive bits, were special. A little “high-strung”, the fertility doctor had stated. So, with no stress from her job, Clare could allow her body to do what it needed it do in a calm, serene environment.

Her office had agreed, begrudgingly. Though Clare knew they didn’t expect her to come back.

“Third times a charm,” Elliott had nervously joked in the clinic’s waiting room, the day of her egg retrieval.

Clare imagined the fertility doctor putting an addition on his house. Maybe if they had a fourth go of it, the doctor could buy a boat. Give it a cheeky name like “Standing Ovulation.”

Then COVID infected the world and her office’s branch was dissolved. Corporate toyed with the idea of everyone working remotely. While they were thinking about it, they let half of them go, including Clare. She had loathed her work anyway.

Elliott’s office remained open. He was a manager in the compliance and ethics industry. Selling harassment and discrimination online courses. The worse the world got, the more money his bosses made.

Clare took to isolation well. She enjoyed the silence at home. At first, the neighborhood streets were lousy with kids, barred from school. She could stay inside, away from all of them. It got so she craved solitude like food. When Elliott came home from work in the evening, she immediately wanted him to leave. He would talk and talk about his day and she would repress the urge to plug up her ears and scream until he fled in absolute terror. Until his skull split open from her banshee wails and splattered brain and blood all over the living room walls. The longer he talked, a desire for violence against him grew, which she would feel bad about later. She really didn’t want to split his skull open. Maybe just sew his mouth shut.

Sew . . . maybe I should learn how to sew?

His kisses made her want to scratch her face off. It made her physically ill to hear him laugh. He was soft and sexless. She wished she could crawl inside the walls until he left for work. Or hide in the attic or the sewer. Anywhere cold and dark. A cavern would be perfect. A cavern with a narrow entranceway that opened to cathedral ceilings and smelled like rocks in autumn.

Elliott would start blabbering about something, anything, typically work-related. And Clare would have no opinion whatsoever. Politics, TV, the weather—no viable opinion whatsoever. At dinner, she ate and drank almost involuntarily. It was just something she had to do until she could be alone again.

When this mad need for isolation first started to consume her, Clare couldn’t pinpoint. Between the first and second IVF cycle made the most sense. In the beginning, she hadn’t thought the failure to fertilize had affected her that much. But nothing made her happy. She hated watching TV. Every commercial break or cheesy sitcom plot included pregnancy, birth, and motherhood. Clare’s uncle was a recovering alcoholic and she remembered how he said he never realized how bombarded we are with liquor and beer ads until he sobered up. Clare felt the same way about baby ads. They were a fucking pox on society.

Quickly, the darkness came over her like weighted blanket. Clare had a feeling it was depression. She was disappointed to be stricken by something so commonplace. So pedestrian.

The thought of talking to her primary care doctor about it made her nauseous. She didn’t like her doctor. He was constantly wiping his hands on his coat, like they were wet.

Clare dealt with the darkness by rearranging the furniture and cleaning and, most recently, keeping an eye on the old woman’s house across the street. She could be dead. Dead as a doornail. Dead as a mummy. Clare had been obsessed with birth for so long—making birth happen, giving birth, experiencing birth—that it felt nice to think about death for once.

There was spotting this morning. Clare touched the small wound on her cheek. What have I done to myself?

She thought about calling the police to do the wellness check. That would mean she would have to explain to them about the mailbox and how it was piling up and they would take down her name and it would be a whole thing. They’d find it suspicious she was watching the old woman’s house. How do you know so much about her mail? They’d start a file on Clare. Talk about her in the locker room. They’d pass down jokes about her to rookies, like heirlooms. The crazy lady on Juniper.

Elliott wouldn’t be home for a few more hours and she couldn’t stand around mourning her beloved skeleton with the top hat, so she decided to talk a walk.

Her green parka hung loose on her bowed shoulders. It was just after 4pm and the afternoon had turned windy and cold. Lifeless trees along the sidewalk raked their fingers across the grey sky, dropping their dead leaves into the gutters.

Juniper was a safe, suburban street. A 25mph zone in the top-ranked school district in the county. That was one of the big draws that led Elliott and Clare out of the city, into this specific neighborhood. Go figure.

Clare crossed over Cypress and turned the corner to Spring Street—downtown’s main line of storefronts. Halloween decorations filled the windows. She stepped over pieces of a smashed jack-o-lantern in front of Hawthorne’s Tavern. Clare noticed a skeleton in the window of the beauty salon and her heart ached. She thought about going inside and asking if she could buy it from them. She could make her own top hat for him out of felt. It wouldn’t be the same though and the women inside would probably judge her nails. They were unpainted, unpolished, and bitten low.

Down the sidewalk, an intrusive local councilman named Doug Rainer was shining the chrome bumper of his Lincoln. Crags of acne scars defined his cheeks and his neck was always pink. His head was pointed, like the tip of a spear. Clare thought these imperfections made him impossible to take seriously. She knew that wasn’t fair, to judge this sack of shit by his looks, but Rainer was a pest who campaigned relentlessly during election years. And he really was a sack of shit.

He straightened his back and noticed Clare. White spittle caked in the corners of his mouth. “Good evening, miss.” The beady eyes narrowed. “Juniper Street, right? The lady who doesn’t vote. Perhaps this year—”

Clare nodded and continued down the sidewalk. She could feel his eyes on her back, watching her with avid derision. His pink neck inflating like a toad’s vocal sac. This gross mental image distracted her and she tripped on a pumpkin stem.

Rainer chuckled just loud enough for her to hear.

Rage consumed Clare’s body. Rainer’s slimy laugh resonated in the cold air. She wanted to explode. She wanted to take the pumpkin stem and stab Rainer in his throat. Smash his sharp skull through his windshield. Flood the driver’s side with his blood.

Clare couldn’t be outside, in Rainer’s line of sight, anymore. The Lucky Duck Diner was on the corner. Her and Elliott frequented there when they’d first moved to the neighborhood. She sidled past the creeps smoking outside and sought refuge within its mirrored walls.

The hostess offered her a menu. Clare took it and sat at the counter without saying a word. The diner was busy with families and couples and strange men sipping coffee, talking quietly to one another. Clare sat at the corner of the counter, next to the swinging door to the kitchen. She glanced through its window and made eye contact with a young bus boy. He smiled at Clare. She quickly looked away, blushing.

Why does everyone have to acknowledge everyone else all the time? We’re all here. We know we’re here. Why do we need it to be validated?

The menu had a cartoon duck dressed like a soda jerk. Clare pretended to read it. She didn’t want anything. She only wanted to get away from Rainer and his terrible laugh. Now she had to feign hunger, feign thirst, feign existence.

When the waitress behind the counter introduced herself as Amber, Clare nodded and said, “Coke and a slice pumpkin pie.”

“Comin’ up!” Amber said in a jarring voice that hurt Clare’s teeth.

Clare handed the menu off to the waitress and finally looked at her. It was a very large woman. Management probably kept her behind the counter because if she worked in the dining area, her hips would be knocking ketchup bottles over. Clare thought this and immediately felt shitty.

She hadn’t been around this many people in weeks. Or had it been months? She scanned the tables. All the people talking—their voices merging into one symphonic murmur. It all seemed so alien. Like Clare had walked into an exhibit of the grotesque. Scowling flesh and sweat and particles of food projected from slobbering traps.

Amber waddled back over to Clare and said, “I’m so sorry. Did you say diet or regular Coke?”

“Regular.”

“Thanks. My mind is a bowl of mush ever since the baby.” Amber laughed at her not-so-subtle ice breaker.

“Baby?”

“Mmhmm. Just turned two months. Sleeps about as many hours a night.” Amber laughed again. Amber was a laugh a minute. “I had to come back to work or risk losing it, you know. Luckily my mom lives with us.”

I don’t give a shit, Clare wanted to say. But she did give a shit. She gave a tremendous shit that this unhealthy whale was able to reproduce, while Clare’s womb was as barren as the Great Salt Lake Deserts. The eggs of this ogre had no issue finding purchase. She probably had not even been trying. Her boozing boyfriend probably assured her he’d pull out his hairy hog before blasting a baby up in her guts.

I don’t like the feel of condoms, honey pie . . .

Clare had been so healthy. The best shape of her life. Had avoided all the foods and all the drinks that all the mommy blogs had told her to. Had worked with a team of fertility doctors—from two different clinics. Had been stabbed by needles over 200 times. And this fucking whale . . .

A guttural cry came from behind the kitchen door. Everyone up front fell silent, while a commotion spewed from the back. The door burst open. Clare flinched and fell backward off her stool, landing on her ass. It knocked the wind out of her. When she looked up, she saw the young busboy, standing over her. At first, she thought he’d come over to help her up. The last gentleman left alive.

Then she saw all the blood.

The busboy clutched his hand as blood poured down his arm, flowing out of the stumps where three of his fingers used to be. The color had drained from his face. An older man in a greasy apron put an arm around his shoulders and guided him out. The diners gasped and whispered and prayed for Jesus to help the busboy.

“The fingers!” Amber cried. “Get his fingers! They can reattach them things! For the love of God, get his fingers!”

The hostess that had greeted Clare flew through the swinging door, into the kitchen. She reemerged seconds later holding two fingers wrapped in a napkin. She was doing her best not to puke.

Diners cheered and clapped for the hostess as she hurried out behind the bleeding busboy. The manager emerged from the kitchen, a smear of blood on his slacks, and apologized profusely to everyone. He said he would comp half of everyone’s meal. This brought on more cheers. A child started to cry.

Clare started to get up when she noticed the finger near her feet. It had been severed clean. Blood trickled out of the end. The waitress who’d ran out with two digits must have not seen this one. Two out of three ain’t bad. The nail was unkempt and caked with dirt.

Still on her ass, Clare leaned forward and discreetly put her foot over the finger, concealing it. What am I doing? Why shouldn’t I do this? Can I ever get what I want? She leaned forward and picked it up and slid it into the pocket of her parka. Nobody said anything.

She put a five on the counter and walked away, quicker than her usual slog. Amber called after her, “Don’t you want your pie?” Clare continued out the door without acknowledging the whale.

Excitement coursed through her body as she walked home. The finger inside her pocket was cold. She held it between her own fingers. It was thin. The pinky, she thought. She’d bled so much lately and had seen enough of her own, that seeing someone else’s blood was, to put it mildly, a thrill.

When was the last time you felt a thrill, huh?

The sun emerged from behind the patches of deep grey. Clare livened up her step. The day was really turning around!

It was late afternoon when Clare arrived back home. She put the finger on a snack plate and placed it in the center of the dining room table. For a while she just stared at it, to see if anything interesting would happen. She compared it to her own pinky. Hers was slightly longer. It was severed just below the second knuckle, so maybe they were about the same length. It was hard to tell.

The finger sat motionless. She poked the open end and felt what she thought was a small piece of bone. The skin started to lose color and turn grey. A watched finger never rots, Clare thought to herself and laughed.

For the first time in a long time, she was feeling assertive. She went into the dining room hutch, which she inherited when her mother died, and scrounged around for the fancy napkins. The hutch was real oak and very tall and was a bitch to move. At the funeral, Clare had joked to Elliott that they ought to bury her mom in the hutch and just put the coffin in the dining room—it would take up less space. Elliott didn’t think it was funny. He had cried harder than anyone else at the funeral.

Clare found the napkins. They were maroon and embroidered with her and Elliott’s initials. They’d been a wedding present from . . . somebody. Clare took one and used it to tightly wrap up the finger. The end had begun to clot, Clare noticed. She slowly paced through the house, searching for the perfect hiding spot. It should be someplace secretive, yet meaningful. She settled for under the mattress, beneath her side of the bed.

In the bathroom, Clare picked at the small cut on her cheek and thought of the old woman. Still feeling assertive, she threw her parka back on headed out the door.

The sun had retreated behind the clouds. Clare heard the enormous willow tree as she approached the house. The tree moaned as the wind cut through its hanging branches and threatened to free its remaining leaves.

Clare hesitated at the black gate. She looked up at the old house of closed doors and curtained windows. Did she really want to do this? Shatter the old woman’s precious solitude? Or, if she was really in the shape Clare was imagining, disturb the dead. A pulling in her chest, aside from the usual knot that rested there, drew her through the gate. Clare was ready for the ancient entrance to let out a terrible squeak. It didn’t make a sound.

She ascended the dark blue, peeling steps of the porch and glanced at the teeming mailbox. Written in faded black marker on the box was the old woman’s name.

Noelle Frick.

Clare thought it was an interesting name. Noelle was so pretty. Hardly anyone was named Noelle anymore. Noelle . . . and then Frick hits you in the head like a gravedigger’s shovel.

Facing the red door, Clare steeled herself and knocked. It felt good. It felt right. The knot in her chest unraveled, leaving behind a warm feeling that leaked down to her belly, like she had to piss. She wondered if she asked, if Noelle would let her use the bathroom. Clare would love to see her bathroom.

Didn’t the elderly die disproportionately in the bathroom? They bust a hip and are never heard from again.

Clare waited a couple minutes before figuring Miss Frick wasn’t going to answer. This only made the draw—the pull—to get inside stronger. She peeked through the door’s small, frosted window. It dark inside. Clare could only make out a chair and a fireplace. Some shelves. It looked like an old-fashioned sitting room.

You just sit in there and . . . sit. What a perfect room, with perfect intent.

Clare shifted around aimlessly on the porch for a minute, wondering if anyone was watching. She thought she could feel the eyes of her neighbors stabbing her. It was a ridiculous thought. No one on this street paid any attention to this old woman’s house expect me. She followed the porch around to the back of the house.

The yard was overrun with waist-high weeds. Clare’s skin tingled with the thought of hundreds of ticks who’ve been waiting for some sucker to go around back.

To Clare’s right, the iron fence ran back a dozen or so yards and ended at a small patch of trees. A screen door hung in the back doorway, dangling from one hinge. Clare lifted it gently aside and knocked on the door. She waited three seconds then tried the knob.

The door opened with a low moan.

Clare found herself inside a small kitchen. It was a mess of mid-60s mint-colored tile and kitsch. The windowsill was lined with those small toys that sway in the sunlight. There was a stale mold smell hanging in the air. Clare paused and listened. Nothing but silence.

She moved slowly through the kitchen, into a dark hallway.

She called, “Miss Frick? Hello? This is your neighbor, Clare Sanderson.”

The sitting room was on the left at the end of the hall. A mudroom on the right, with the front door. The mold smell had given way to the simple scent of time—like an antique shop. In between the two rooms, a carpeted stairway led up to the second floor.

Clare went back into the hall. There was a door on the left. The wooden floor rasped under her feet.

It opened to a small powder room. Clare saw herself in the mirror. She jumped and laughed uneasily.

She closed the door and called Miss Frick’s name again. Again, there was no reply. She sauntered back into the kitchen. Next to the fridge was a door. It opened to stairs leading down to a basement. Just as I suspected. Warm air drifted up and softly hugged her. Clare closed the door and swatted the warm air away. Basements were usually cold.

The place felt like it had been abandoned for several years. Little hints of desolations could be seen in the corners of the floors and ceilings. Cracks and cobwebs. Stains and chips on the cabinets.

A warm wave of shame came over Clare. Miss Frick probably went away to visit a sick relative and here Clare was, trespassing. Tromping through a poor old woman’s fortress of solitude. Mummies emerged in her mind again and Clare headed for the back door.

She paused before touching the doorknob. What if I am right goddammit? The old lady is probably upstairs, fainted for lack of food. Maybe she needs her medication but can’t reach it. Maybe I’m the only who can help her because I’m the only one in this godforsaken town that gives a good goddamn.

The stairs were disturbingly quiet. The wooden floors of the hallway had creaked terribly. The carpeted stairs made no sound. One could really sneak up and down, if one wanted to do such a thing. To disturb the silence, Clare ran her finger across the wooden banister’s posts rat-tat-tat-tat.

The second-floor landing looked down on the entrance. To Clare’s right was a hall leading to more doors. To the left was a smaller hall with one door at the end. Judging from the location, this door led into the turret—what Clare had always taken for the most impressive part of the house.

Approaching the door, Clare discovered that there was no handle, no knob. Not even a keyhole to look through. A pang of disappointment hit her. She’d wanted to go up the turret.

Walking down to the other end of the hall, Clare ran her hand along the dark green wallpaper with an ornate floral design. It was a dizzying design, peeling in most places, with repeating trails of ivy and narrow willow leaves

Framed photographs were arranged neatly down the hall. The first was a black and white of the house, around the time it was built, in the early 1900s. The second showed a family—mother and father, daughter and son, all standing in front of what looked like a black hole. Clare looked closer. The black hole was the mouth of a cave. They were posing in front of a cave. On top of the cave was a willow tree, sort of like the one outside, but smaller.

Clare’s eyes moved over the faces of the cave-happy family. They looked indifferent to one another. The parents were young, maybe early 20s. Clare figured Miss Frick was the daughter. Her face looked blurry. Like she’d moved her head just as the shutter clicked.

“I don’t like having to smile for photos either, girl,” Clare said to the blur.

The next door led to a master bedroom, followed by two smaller rooms. One seemed to be used as a guestroom. It contained a twin bed, stripped bare, and on only one wall, the ugliest wallpaper Clare had ever seen.

The other room was a sort of den, lined with bookshelves. The den was especially cold. Colder than any other spot in the house so far. It was also soundless and smelled damp. Clare stood just in the doorway and closed her eyes.

My god . . . it’s so peaceful.

She took a walk around the master bedroom next. It was large and lonely, with long, narrow windows and oak floors blackened with age. The bed was a queen canopy, with dark draperies looming around it. The rest of the furniture was lifeless and uncomfortable. An air of gloom hung over the room. Clare thought it was beautiful. She closed her eyes and soaked in the quiet.

I wouldn’t change a thing in this house. Nothing inside it existed outside of Miss Frick. It was the stronghold of one woman.

A dull thumping sound came from the door at the end of the hall. Hrump . . . hrump . . . hrump . . . and then stopped. Clare felt cold. She tried to call out for Miss Frick again. All she could manage was a cough. It sounded as if it came from someone else’s mouth, like a distant radio signal.

The doorknob felt warm, like someone had held it tightly only a moment before. She inched open the door. It was the master bathroom. Light came in through a window next to the gold vanity. The walls were painted a deep red. The floor tiles alternated black and white. The bathtub was a one of those old ones Clare had only seen in movies. With high walls and cast-iron claw feet. From the doorway, she could see that the tub was full of water. A smell of mildew hung in the air. She walked into the bathroom to take a closer look.

Inside the tub was Noelle Frick.

Clare screamed and fell backward into the hall. Her back hit the wall and she slid to her ass.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to barge in!”

Noelle didn’t reply. She remained silent and submerged.

“I . . . Miss Frick? Are you okay?”

Clare realized it was a stupid thing to ask to a drowned woman.

She got up, using the wall as a crutch, and sidled into the bathroom, afraid to disturb the dead.

Clare walked around to the side of the tub and looked down into the murky water. The pale orbs of Miss Frick’s eyes were sunken into her colorless, wrinkled face. One side of her mouth was turned down into a frown, while the other was curled up in a horrible smile. Her thin, white hair floated around her head like jellyfish tendrils. The pallid pupils seemed to be looking directly up at Clare.

Clare turned to the toilet and vomited. Most of it got on the seat. She noticed a grey pubic hair near the back of the rim and she threw up again. Nothing but bile came up this time.

The air in the room felt like it was thickening and putting pressure on Clare’s skull. She closed her eyes and tried not to vomit further. When she opened them again, she kept her focus on the floor tiles. The grout and checkerboard design. She fumbled in her pockets for her cellphone. Her fingers were clammy and clumsy and shaking as she attempted to dial 911. The phone slipped out of her hands and dropped into the fetid bathwater.

“Oh fuuuck . . .” Clare moaned.

Through the water, gloomy with dead skin cells and bacteria, Clare could see her phone between the old woman’s legs, close to her womanhood. Nausea bubbled up again. The room quivered on its foundations.

Clare looked at Noelle. Through the water, the dead woman glared up and double-dog-dared her to try for the phone. Clare slowly reached one hand down toward the water. It felt like she was having an out of body experience—watching someone else’s hand reach. The tip of her middle finger felt the cold mucus liquid and Clare screamed again.

“Fucking stupid,” Clare said to herself. “Wouldn’t work now anyway.”

She could run back home and ask to use a neighbor’s phone. She could just stand out on the lawn and scream loud enough that the whole neighborhood called the police.

She could do a lot of things. A feeling of impending transformation held her in place.

“What the fuck am I doing here?”

This is possibly a crime scene and I trespassed, threw up everywhere and dropped my phone in the death soup.

Clare knew she couldn’t leave her phone behind. If she ran now, authorities would retrieve it and use the SIM card or whatever to frame her as the prime suspect in the suspicious death of Noelle Frick. Was it suspicious? No, she’s 100 years old. She probably stroked out or slipped and hit her head trying to get out of tub.

She thought of the severed finger at home, under her mattress. Her trophy of assertion.

Fuck it.

She rolled up her sleeve and looked down through the water, only at her phone—not at the pallid flesh or wiry bush. She braced herself with several deep breaths. Thrusting down her arm, Clare frantically reached for the phone. Her arm touched the corpse’s cold and slimy thighs. Clare gagged. Her fingers grazed pubic hair. Her whole body shivered. After an eternity, she got a grip on the phone and yanked it out of the murk. She dried it off on a towel and moved to the sink to wash her hands. On the lip of the sink, deliberately placed, was a thin silver case. Worn with years of use, the silver looked dull under the sink’s dim bulb. In script, the name “Troutman” was engraved across the front. An ex-lover? Clare thought. She left it on the sink.

As calmly as she could, she went back down the hall, continued down the stairs, and finally through the back door. She really wanted to scream the whole way, at the very top of her lungs. Until her throat was raw and every breath felt like a spoonful of sandpaper. Instead, she did it all inside her head. Like most of her feelings, Clare even screamed in silence.

###

Clare put the cellphone on a dishtowel on the kitchen counter. She showered, scrubbing her right arm as if it were covered in fire ants. She kept her eyes away from the mirror. While she was drying off, she heard Elliott come home and she breathed in an air of sorrow.

She lifted her mouth to the showerhead and let water fill her mouth. She imagined Miss Frick’s lifeless eyes. Drowning . . .

She heard a voice call to her . . . Claaaare.

It was only Elliott.

“Clare!” He was on the other side of the bathroom door. “Why’re you showering now?”

“Just come in, Elliott. I’m not yelling through the door.”

The bathroom door opened. She remained behind the curtain.

“I’ve been calling you,” he said.

“I dropped my phone in the toilet.”

“What?” The touch of annoyance in his voice was nearly hidden, but Clare could always detect it. Her ears had been tuned over the years to pick up on Elliott’s subtleties.

“I was doing some cleaning and dropped it in the toilet.”

“The protection plan doesn’t cover that. If you get it wet.”

“I know. I’ll go see about it tomorrow.”

“Huh.” Elliott always made that noise when Clare stated her plan, and he was considering other ones.

“You’re the only one I talk to anyway. I’m sure I’ll survive one night without a phone.”

“Right.” Elliott hovered behind the door for an awkward moment, then asked, “How’s, you know, everything?”

Clare pulled back the shower curtain and shook her head. “I was spotting this morning. I’ll take a test in the morning, but it’s probably gone.”

Elliott nodded. He said nothing and closed the door.

Clare was glad he didn’t say anything. He was shit at comforting her. It’s better he said nothing at all and stayed that way forever.

###

They ate Chinese food in front of the TV. Louder than the sound of Pat Sajak was that of Elliott chewing his General Tsaos. That’s how it sounded in Clare’s ears, at least. She knew he really wasn’t chewing that loud. It was just her craving for solitude turning him into a source of irritation.

Before they sat down to eat, Elliott gave her a hug from behind and thanked her for trying again. Clare could tell he’d been crying. The puffiness around the eyes gave it away.

Elliott had let himself go since their whole “journey” began. Christ, she hated how everyone called it a “fertility journey”. Like that dulled the misery. The pandemic didn’t help Elliott’s physique. Even though nothing really changed for him—his “essential” ass still went to work every day—he saw his chance to stress eat garbage with the rest of the world.

Not that Clare minded his weight gain. He looked good, all filled out. It added charm to his handsome face. Like he could look better if he wanted, but chose not to. He chose Chinese food.

Elliott cleared his throat between mouthfuls and said, “Adam at work, he said they’re hiring down at his wife’s job. She’s been there a while. Likes it.”

“Where does she work?”

“The municipal building. Clerical stuff for the Department of Public Works. Adam assured me they’re not closing down for the virus. It’s essential, like me. Want me to have Adam put in a word?”

Clare shrugged.

“What happened to your cheek?”

Clare touched the small cut on her cheek from the garage window. “Oh, it’s nothing. I was trimming the hedge out front. The one outside the garage window. Piece of the hedge caught me in the face.”

Elliott frowned. “Ouch.”

They hadn’t been intimate since before the second IVF attempt. The godforsaken “journey” sapped all of the romance and thrill out of sex. Made it perfunctory.

And now, since the veil of isolation had come over Clare, she didn’t even like being physically close to her husband. Which was why, that night, she tried to think of a good excuse to sleep outside.

It was ridiculous. She knew that. Aside from maybe a gas leak or active fire, there was no reason for a grown ass woman to sleep outside, in October. But ever since her experience at Miss Frick’s house earlier, the desire to be alone felt greater. She needed solitude or she was going to pop.

Pop. Did a corpse’s eyeballs eventually pop if they were underwater for too long?

Clare took a cast iron patio chair from out of the garage and set it up on their back deck. The small wooden deck faced a small patch of pine trees and purple loosestrifes and crabgrass, on the other side of which was a grassy slope, ending at the next street over. It created a nice bit of privacy for their yard. Though sometimes, Clare felt someone might be watching from under the shadow of the pines.

She arranged the chair so that it faced the trees and spread a flannel throw blanket over her legs and made herself comfortable. Elliott stared at her through the kitchen window, unsure. She could feel his eyes boring into the back of her head.

After several minutes, Elliott opened the sliding glass door and stepped onto the deck.

“I should’ve stained it over the summer, huh?” he said, referring to the wooden deck.

“We had other things to worry about,” she said.

Elliott nodded. “True. Are you okay?”

“Not really.”

“What can I do? How can I help?”

“I kind’ve just want to be alone right now.”

“But it’s getting cold.”

“I’m fine.”

“I’ll stay in the living room. Sleep on the couch. You can have the bedroom to yourself.”

“I’d prefer not to.”

“You’re going to stay out here?”

Clare wrapped the blanket tighter around herself.

Elliott put his hands out in surrender. “What can I do, Clare? Just tell me.”

“Just give me some time. I can’t just flip a switch and pretend I’m fine.”

Clare never took her eyes off the pines as Elliott relented and went back inside. Once the sliding door closed, she immediately felt ashamed for shutting him out. This was time to lean on one another. Not dig a trench. Elliott was a goody guy, just . . . Clare didn’t want him around for the time being. She felt this deep down. Like a new bone growing in her skeleton.

Skeleton . . . how long did it take for flesh to . . .

Clare got up from the chair and wrapped the throw blanket around her like a shawl. The trees were starting to release their pinecones. Clare kicked a few down toward the trunks, off the grass. Elliott hated running over them with the lawn mower. The kitchen light switched off. Elliott would be taking a shower now, then off to bed. He always read for at least 30 minutes before nodding off like a drugged infant.

It had been years since Clare had fallen asleep without the assistance of drugs. Melatonin, Valerian Root, and on those special nights, Nyquil straight from the bottle. Sometimes these aids didn’t even work. And Clare would lie in bed, counting the minutes in her head. It was insomnia plus. The type of sleeplessness that made her wish she had never been born.

An owl hooted up in one of the trees. The sharp sound sent a chill down Clare’s body. You don’t hear many owls out here. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard one. She tried to spot it in the trees but saw nothing. Looking further up, she noticed the sky. There were no stars.

She walked around the side of the house. The light from Elliott’s bedside lamp shone dimly through the blinds. Clare ducked beneath the window as she passed. Creeping around her own home like a burglar. Don’t disturb the dead leaves and don’t let Elliott hear you. She laughed at her absurd lurking on her own property, but it felt right. She did leave the scene of a murder only hours before. Chinese food and television could not erase this.

Few lights were on inside the neighboring homes. Squat, ranch style homes—same as Clare’s. The Thompsons lived to their right. Parents of wretched twin boys who Clare had caught peeping last summer. Mrs. Thompson simply lifted an eyebrow at Clare when she’d told the mother that her two little boys were deviants.

“I can show you their slimy little fingerprints on my kitchen window,” Clare had offered.

Mrs. Thompson looked down on Clare. Thought her to be lazy and barren. This is the vibe Clare got from her, anyway. From all of her neighbors. They looked at Clare as an enemy, for being different, for being childless. This was a family neighborhood and Clare was not worthy of it. They all looked at her in this manner.

Except the Hansons.

They lived to the left—an elderly couple that had invited Clare and Elliott over for brunch several times over the years. They’d obliged at first. Then made up a litany of excuses as to why they couldn’t come.

“Their house just smells weird,” Elliott complained. “It smells like . . . you know, weird.” Clare agreed.

Their relationship had devolved to a courteous nod when they saw each other outside.

The only conspicuous home on the block was Miss Frick’s citadel, towering on the corner, where the sky and the ground met on the horizon. It seemed like its own little world. Even in the darkness, the red door seemed to glow.

Clare sat down at the corner of the garage door, next to a bush. It was a nice spot to watch the Frick house. Inside, Clare knew the old woman was rotting in the cold water. An anonymous call. That’s what she’d do. Tomorrow, she’d make an anonymous tip to the police, saying there was a dead woman inside the house.

Could they trace where the call was made from?

Clare would walk down to the Wawa a couple miles away and use the payphone to make an anonymous tip to the police.

Was there even a payphone over there?

She wondered what would happen then. They’d either deem it accidental or natural death or a homicide. They could open a homicide investigation and dust for prints. Especially around the bathroom, where the soggy corpse would be discovered.

Clare felt like throwing up again. Chinese would not taste good a second time.

They’d contact the next of kin, whoever that may be. Possibly the younger brother in the photograph. What if he was dead too? What would happen to the house then, she wondered? If everyone was dead?

She wondered about this until it hurt.

No one else deserved the house. It was so beautiful. So full of peace and stillness. The perfect vessel for one woman’s solitude. They would open the house up to strangers. Infest every inch of the house. Strain its foundations. Change everything down to the way it smells. Everything Miss Frick cherished will be lost, like hair down the drain.

“But it’s mine,” Clare said aloud, with a pain in her heart.

Next Chapter: Part Two: Harold and Dillon