Open Water

The landlady opens the front door to the eighties’ brown bungalow on the third knock. She swings it half-open and jams her foot in the space between to stop a gnarled tabby from slinking out into the street.

“We keep him in more than out nowadays,” she explains, ushering me in and closing the door before the cat can escape. “Last month he went missing for days. Turns out he caught the train two hours to St. Pleinsworth and took up at a local café before he decided to come home.”

“How do you know where he went?” I stand straight and timid on the doormat. As though to assert that I am a polite individual without malicious nor guilting intent, I wipe my feet on the straw square. My feet aren’t dirty. But it’s the gesture people catch. The landlady smiles over her glasses at me in appreciation and turns to lead me down the hall. “Someone left a note in his collar, and a video of him made rounds on those social medias.”

Those social medias. I nod. Yes, that sometimes happens. We delight in small, strange situations, particularly those involving the innocuous adventures of animals. I skirt around the mangy cat and pretend I feel his lamp-like eyes follow us down the hall. “Nice of someone to leave a note. What did it say?”

“Something about him being a new employee at the café, and ten percent off if we ever go to visit. We haven’t gone yet.” The bungalow is musty. Thick, mint-coloured curtains are closed against the summer heat to keep the cool in, but warm air ushers in through an open screen. Photo frames decorate the walls, documenting family, events, loves, likes. Laughs. I don’t want to make memories here and this is the only time (I hope) I’ll ever visit, so I hurry past the smiles and duck around a corner behind the woman.

The stairs into the basement are dusty. Apart from the reason for my visit, something about the disarray unnerves me. The landlady flicks on a light switch once we reach the door, and moves aside to let me access the knob. “Whenever you’re ready.” This time sympathy leeches into her words for the first time. We’re finally at the point of addressing the reason I’m here. I wish I were here to talk about the cat and only that.

I look at her. “Has anyone else been here?”

“Just you, dear. It’s been untouched since… well, since it happened.” Her voice remains steady. “Do you need a moment?” She reaches out to touch my shoulder and without thinking, I shrink away. I jump to apologize as her eyes widen. “I’m sorry, I… No, I don’t. It’s just a lot, you know?”

“Of course.” She waves my words away and then takes a few steps back. “Well, take all the time you need. Do you have boxes in the car?”

“Yes,” I lie. And she leaves me to my privacy, tottering back up the stairs and rustling about somewhere on the main floor. With nothing else to do I look at the doorknob, at the door, reach out, push it open and walk over the threshold.

It’s been untouched. The dust is even worse down here. There shouldn’t be this much dust after only a few weeks. He must not have been at home much to begin with. It must have become something of a vault, a place to have mail sent to. Some sort of LZ.

There are dishes scattered on the counter and in the double sinks. Weak sunlight forces its way into the basement via a thin strip of window by the ceiling, illuminating the dust I stir as I breach further in.

Books on the ground. Paper scattered in circles. There’s a photo of me, Grandma, and Harry on the fridge. There’s a love note from Penny on the other side. Another one poking out from under the fridge, the ink watered down, probably from him kicking fallen ice cubes into hiding places to melt and disappear. The writing is faded, but I catch a barely legible love you on it. She used to write him all the time. My heart tightens.

When did he lose hope?

In one cascading rush that surges so quickly to the surface I can’t tighten my resistance to it fast enough, grief pours out of me in a whoosh of air. My chest clenches. It pulls so tightly around my ribs and my squirming heart that there’s no room to pull more air in. I sag to the ground and flop forward so my elbows and nose sink into the carpet. I sob in wretched gasps until nausea blooms, and I’m forced to hold my breath to salvage myself.

My brother doesn’t live here anymore. He doesn’t live at all.

Signs of him, his realness, proof that he existed and was vanquished like a candle into the dark, they all act as pinpricks. There’s nothing left now.

The papers are all that matter. The furniture came with the basement. With some mental pushing I start to gather them, the papers on the ground, on the desk, the couch, pull the blank ones out of the printer and take the photos and notes off the fridge. I shove them all into my purse, fold what can be folded without taking too much damage and fasten the clasp when it’s close to bursting.

They can donate his clothes. He won’t be needing them anymore. My lip quivers. The clothes I knew him in best, he took with him. Unbidden, an image of him in the hospital flashes into my mind and it nearly brings me back to my knees. I hear the beeping of machines. I push it away. I see flashing lights. Push it. Push it away. His face is grey. Something else. Think of something else.

I haven’t eaten much since that day.

Some people say you can feel the presence of your loved ones after they’re gone. I don’t feel him here at all, in the dusty dark. It’s like rifling through a stranger’s belongings. Feels like an invasion of privacy, as though I’m pushing through a translucent veil of taboo to prod and poke around. It’s an unspoken rule and there’s a modicum of discomfort associated with it, like my whole body is intimately aware I’m doing wrong. But am I?

I finish gathering what I’ve come for and pull the note from Penny out from under the fridge. My eyes wander over the writing, half seeing and not, and I straighten, about to slip it into my bag when I notice a few words at the bottom of the page. They’re clear, untouched by the water, and slanted as though written in haste: Promise me you won’t meet him at the bridge.

My eyes widen.

The world is falling away from my feet, falling, falling, I am untethered, soaring, falling.

“Laia? It’s me. You’re not picking up your phone, so I can’t tell you any other way. It’s Mack. He… he jumped off Youngren Bridge. Your Dad and I, we’re… we’re driving to the hospital now. They say it doesn’t look good. What, Craig? Yes, they said he jumped. Oh, Laia… Please pick up.”

Something warm slips over and around my feet. I scream.

I try to step away, trip and fall onto the floor, tangling into the fur of a very startled, unamused, gnarled tabby. He hisses at me, struggling to get out from under my arm. “What were you thinking?!” I shout. I scrabble to my feet and suddenly, the hostility of this cat is a threat and an intrusion upon my moments here. They’re supposed to be private, respected. “Get out!”

Timid footfalls shuffle overhead to the top of the stairs. “…Dear? Everything okay?”

Don’t meet who at the bridge?

“Fine!” I aim a kick at the cat to get him to move away from me. His fur is bristling, like mine, and the confusion in his eyes somewhat mirrors what I imagine to be in mine, mired in a swamp of anger, defensiveness, and charcoal hurt. He scampers around the counter and hides under the couch, his eyes twin flames of accusation in the dark. “I tripped, I’m fine.” I stumble over to the door and shove out a thumbs up. “I’ll come up in a minute. I just need...”

“Are you sure? You can take as long as you need, I made some tea.” Her face appears over the stairs. Suddenly, I hate her. I hate her. I hate her. I hate her cat. I hate her place. I need to get out. I hate my Mom. I hate my Dad. I hate Penny. I hate Youngren Bridge. I smile disarmingly. “No! Thanks though. I should really get out of your hair.” Hate in my heart, I close the door before the cat can follow me, and flood up the stairs. I clutch the note and the papers in my bag tightly to me.

The landlady bids me a somewhat confused but kind goodbye at the front door. I thank her for everything, for her kindness and flexibility, and surge down the front steps and out to my car before she can add any further sympathies to the list.

“Oh, I think your cat might be in the room,” I add over my shoulder, after I’ve crossed the street. “I heard him pawing around but don’t know if he came up.”

It’s not his fault that Mack is dead.

But it doesn't sound like Mack is to blame either.