46 The Meadow says. “Your organization is right. It’s better if I’m gone.” My mind screams at me not to, but I step into the light. I force myself to stand tall. It’s difficult. I’m used to hunching. I try to imagine what he sees. A small woman, weathered and spry and slinking like a stoat, all in gray-black; someone from the absolute margins of this world, hideous with damage and submersion in evil every hour of every day. Someone without an outward face, like the one he has made. Someone invisible. “I understand what’s wrong with you,” I say despite myself. At this he pauses. His hands fall to his sides. We stare at each other. For real this time. Unbidden, a complicity is growing between us. Not approval, certainly not that. But recognition. It horrifies me to do it, but I open my hand and let go of the knife. He doesn’t move. Our eyes are locked in a death-stare. The requiem in my head is all out of tune. I can’t find its melody. I am lost. This is a watershed. I’m at the edge of the plank, about to dive into a heaving, unknown sea. The knife hits the tile with a sound I feel in my skull. I immediately regret dropping it. There’s someone behind me. My ears sting with the realization that there is another person with us in the house. The membrane of my attention pulses to life. My ears reorient toward the sound. His bodyguard? How could I have so profoundly misread the situation? I’ve gone soft. Sounds flatten and contract as I focus on the small noises to my southeast, sounds most people wouldn’t notice, the tap of a soft shoe on the living room kilim, a rustle of clothing, breath held in a throat, the ambient, radiating warmth of a human body moving into my proprioceptive space. He watches as I drop back into shadow on pure instinct, making myself flat and invisible. His expression is quizzical. His head cocks to the side. I realize too late that he doesn’t know anyone else is here.
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