Sitting on the toilet lid as she brushes her teeth the next morning, Helena feels guilty, complicit in whatever Joachim’s keeping from her. Why didn’t she ask him what caused them to separate? It might be unpleasant to remember, but she’s got the advantage there—she won’t remember it any more vividly than whatever’s in today’s paper. Will it really be that bad? But why should it be? She knows the kind of things they fought about, the banal arguments, the stray remarks flung like lit matches into a pool of gasoline, erupting into fury. Why should this have been anything special?
Separating was something they always talked about, usually after the fight rather than during it. While the wounds were still raw and they weren’t sure they’d ever heal. But a few days later, they were happy again, happy enough to pretend there had never been any problems between them, though not happy enough to forget. But it was just something they talked about. Something must’ve changed that.
He helps her up to spit into the sink, turns on the tap for her to rinse. Whose decision was it? Did she want to leave or did he? It’s hard to interpret his kindness to her now. Of course he feels bad about her accident and all that. But beyond physically caring for her, there’s a gentleness in his speech and attitude toward her—careful not to offend, not to start a fight. Is he regretting having told her to get out, or trying to keep her from deciding to leave again? She’s missing some minor crucial detail, the key piece that would allow her to put the whole puzzle together.
He looks at his watch. He must be running late, and it doesn’t help that he has to stop by her office again.
“Don’t worry about getting me dressed,” she says. “I can do that on my own. I mean, I’ve got all day.” She tries and fails to laugh.
“Okay, if you’re sure.” He doesn’t quite manage to hide his relief.
“I’m sure.” The small sentence echoes with dishonesty, referring to everything and nothing, all the things she no longer knows and maybe never did. When he closes the door, she waits to see whether the apartment will fall to pieces in the resounding silence he leaves behind, but everything remains still. The ceiling doesn’t cave in; the walls and windows don’t crack or crumble. Everything is okay. As long as she makes it through this day, through each of these days, everything will be okay.
• • •
Every morning is the same. Helena wakes sore and a little sweaty, feeling like she’s had a wild night out. Then she becomes aware of herself, of her broken bones and damaged flesh. Today, Joachim’s already gone. He hasn’t left her a note like he did the past few days. She picks up her crutches from beside the bed and hobbles into the bathroom. Her armpits ache from bearing her weight, even over the short distances she travels in the apartment. It will be hard to get in shape again later, but she tries not to think about that now.
He’s left the drive by the computer, another assignment. She can’t believe their Internet connection and the landline are still out. Isn’t there someone they can complain to? She’ll work all day, seeing no one, speaking to no one, and then he’ll take the flash drive with him. Carefully preserving the vacuum around her.
Her face looks greasy in the streaked bathroom mirror, and the bruising on the right side of it is still a grotesque array of colors: blue, green, yellow, purple, and the red-brown of scabs about to fall off. The dark little stitches have already dissolved. She didn’t like to look in the mirror while they were there. She can take the bruising, but there was something so horrifying about those small, dark marks, foreign objects threaded into her skin. She splashes water on her face and almost falls down when the cold of it startles her. This has been her routine for days now. She tries but can’t figure out how many. She started and finished her period, and there were weekends she spent sleeping and playing cards with Joachim, watching whatever was on TV. Even a few days are an eternity when you can’t remember what the last thing you can remember is. She’d like to take a shower but it’s too dangerous—she could slip and break something else. Joachim will help her into the tub when he gets home.
When he gets home. Patting her face dry, she feels resentment welling up in her for this dependence. She can’t work, can’t bathe, can hardly get herself something to eat without him. It’ll take her another twenty minutes of sweating and struggling to get dressed, and what for? She’s not going to see anyone.
The thought is so dispiriting that she simply brushes her teeth and hobbles out of the bathroom in her pajamas. She stubs her left toe on the threshold of the room, as if she didn’t have enough pain already.
In the kitchen, he’s left the coffee machine on, two pieces of bread in the toaster. Well, that was thoughtful. She’s supposed to keep eating even when the painkillers make her nauseous. At least the bottle’s almost empty, so she can switch to ibuprofen soon. She makes her way to the computer, switches it on, and leans against the wall to rest before going back to the toaster. She eats the toast leaning against the counter because it would be too much effort to carry it to the table. He didn’t leave butter or jam out, and she can’t be bothered to get it herself. The dryness of the toast scrapes her throat, and she hurries to swallow it down.
By holding the cup against one crutch, she manages to make it back to the table with half a cup of coffee. The rest splatters on her pajama pants and the floor.
She inserts the flash drive and waits for it to load. At least Joachim’s laptop already had all the software she needs. It might’ve been better if it didn’t, though, if he were forced to figure out something with the Internet connection. Loneliness fills her abruptly, as if she’d swallowed it with her coffee. If only she could check her emails, let her parents know how she’s doing, or catch up with the people at work. She can’t remember any of her coworkers, but all that will come back with time. If she asks Joachim tonight, she’ll remember. Just one piece at a time, and she’ll put the puzzle back together. The rest will come by itself. Hoping against hope, she checks the network connection on the computer. But there’s nothing coming from their apartment, and all the neighbors’ connections are password-protected.
Well, so what. It isn’t the only Internet connection in the world. If she gets the laptop into a backpack, she’s pretty sure she could carry it. She’ll go slowly, even if it takes an hour just to get to that coffee shop down the street—what’s it called again?—and she’ll get connected there. Joachim’s acting like she’s a cripple, but won’t he be surprised when he comes back to an empty apartment, finds a note saying she’s gone out. Of course she’ll tell him where she’s going. It would be good if he came to pick her up. If he carried her things back into the apartment tonight.
This plan keeps her in good spirits all morning and into the afternoon as she finishes a corporate presentation for new and prospective employees. The date in the corner of each slide still looks strange to her, though she’s known what year it is for a while now. She wonders about the past few years, wonders what became of them as if they were items of clothing that vanished in the wash or got left in a hotel. Like the things she remembers wearing but can’t find now. Sometimes, when she describes these things, Joachim says she hasn’t owned them for years; other times he says a lot of things got damaged when the apartment flooded and had to be taken to the dry cleaner’s. Or thrown away. She doesn’t really believe she’ll see her things again, and when she gets into one of her strange moods, she doesn’t really believe she’ll get those years back, either. Did she really live them, if she can’t remember a thing about them? How would her life be different now, if she had those years?
She’s hungry, but decides to work through it. It’s so much effort to get things out of the refrigerator, and she can just buy something when she goes out. Getting there will be so much of a struggle that she’d rather not wrestle with anything in the apartment first. It’s just like Joachim not to think of any of these things. On the one hand, he babies her when he’s here, does everything for her. When she got back from the hospital, he carried her crutches up the stairs and then came back for her. On the other hand, he doesn’t think of how it is when he’s at work all day and there’s no one here to help her, to hold open the door of the refrigerator or pull the arm of a sleeve she can’t get off. It’s just a matter of time, though. It’s been good between them these past few days. It seems to her that they were always fighting, but it’s been calm between them, not even any bickering. The accident must’ve scared them more than they know. Or maybe they fixed things in their marriage before that, and she just can’t remember. Maybe all that fighting was years ago, already a thing of the past. But then why the separation?
She forces her mind back to the task at hand, finishes the project and copies it onto the flash drive, heavy with the satisfying weariness of a job well done. She feels that she’s good at her job, respected at her office, but maybe that was another office, another job. There’s no point making her head ache now, trying to figure all that out. Her energy surges briefly as she shuts down the computer, and she manages to make it to the hall closet, pull Joachim’s hiking backpack down from the top shelf with one crutch, and then pack the computer into it. Using her left hand, she pulls the straps over her shoulders. Her purse is on the sofa, and she rests a moment there as she moves it into the backpack. She won’t need her keys as long as he comes to get her. She hasn’t seen them lately, anyway; maybe they got destroyed in the accident, like her phone. They’ll have to have a new set made. She pulls a pen and an old bus ticket out of her purse, writes a note on the back. She can’t remember the name of that café, but she knows it’s to the left as you come out the door of their apartment, a couple of blocks away. He’ll know the one she means.
Outside the apartment, she pauses to take stock. Twelve steps to the landing between here and the floor below, then another twelve steps to actually reach that floor. All that multiplied by four. Funny how you never notice things like that, the number of steps in your building. You just walk up and down, day after day, oblivious. Until you can’t.
But she can. With the straps of the backpack cutting into her shoulders, she moves to the top of the staircase. A wave of dizziness comes over her and she grabs for the railing. Her left crutch slips out and crashes to the floor, then slides down the first couple of steps. Steady, steady. She’ll just reach down and pick it up, no need to panic. Leaning against the wall, she clutches her right crutch in her left hand and tries to sweep the fallen crutch back onto the landing. She makes solid, promising contact with it, but then something about the angle’s wrong and she loses control, watches in sweaty dismay as it tumbles down the rest of the steps. Steady, stea—
The door behind her opens, and her heart tumbles down some staircase within her, all hard angles and clatter. It’s a bearded young man in boxer shorts and a wifebeater; he looks like he just woke up. She doesn’t recognize him, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t met.
“Evening,” she says.
He looks at her for a few beats, trying to understand the situation.
“Everything okay?” he asks. “I heard something fall.”
“Yes, everything’s fine. I just stepped out and then…”
Both of them look down at the crutch.
“I’ll get that.” He disappears into his apartment, comes back with flip-flops on, and hurries down the stairs after her crutch as if it were running away from him.
“There you go.”
He stands in his doorway, looking at her. She must look terrible, unfit to be outside. She realizes that she never even got dressed this morning, didn’t wash herself or put on deodorant. She must look crazy. What was she thinking, trying to go out when it was too much effort even to put on a pair of clean underwear? But she just has to smile and act normal; accidents can happen to anybody. She never asked for this.
“I got hit by a car a couple weeks ago.”
“Oh.” He looks both relieved and embarrassed. He was probably afraid to ask. Maybe he thought Joachim pushed her down the stairs. How ridiculous. Things were never that bad. Maybe this neighbor knows Joachim. He might even know her. She feels dizzy and wishes she were resting on the sofa now, wishes she’d never had this stupid plan and come out here. She’s so impatient to get better she risked hurting herself all over again. What would Joachim say if he knew?
“Do you want me to help you? I mean, were you trying to get downstairs?”
“Yes. Well, no, not exactly. I just needed some fresh air.”
“If you need to get downstairs—”
“I think I’d better not. But thanks anyway.”
“No problem. Let me know if you need anything.”
“Thanks.”
Smile, move away from the staircase, end the encounter. The friendly neighbor from across the hall who just stepped out for some air. It occurs to her as she hobbles back to the door that she doesn’t have her keys, but luckily the man has already gone back in and closed his door.
Careful not to make a sound, not to attract his attention again, she props her crutches in the corner. Holding the doorknob with her left hand, she slowly lowers herself to the ground and leans against the door, exhausted.
It seems like an eternity before she hears Joachim’s heavy tread coming up the stairs, but it may only have been a few minutes. After all, it was already evening when she left. She tries to stand up as he approaches, to laugh the whole thing off, but of course she can’t stand, and pain shoots through her, ricocheting across her abdomen into her appendages and finally settling somewhere in her forehead. She cries out in spite of herself as he runs up the last few steps to help her. It’s not until he bends to lift her that she bursts into tears.
“I didn’t have my keys.” She has to say this a few times before he understands. She’s ashamed of herself, even after he’s gotten her back inside the apartment and closed the door; she’s ashamed to have him see her like this, letting herself go all to pieces. But he doesn’t know what it’s like to be trapped here every day, helpless, cut off from everyone. Well, not everyone—she has him, of course—but it isn’t enough.
• • •
The worst part is that it’s always fine again in the evenings, or fine enough. He’s there, and the exhausting, claustrophobic despair of the day seems almost imagined. But then she wakes the next morning and it starts again.
Besides, there’s still something off about Joachim, but she’s too close to him to know what. She needs distance, perspective, advice from family and friends. She needs to know what the world looks like outside of this apartment, right now. It seems to her that she no longer has any idea what’s out there, or who.
The next day, over her lunch of dry bread—he keeps saying she needs to eat—she reaches for the card from her company again, the cuddly puppy with its sad eyes and tufts of fur protruding from a pretend cast.
She opens the card, but none of the names jumps out at her. She swallows a hard chunk of disappointment. She was so sure she’d recognize one or two, her best friends at the office, or the colleagues she can’t stand. So sure that she didn’t even need to look. Or was afraid to. She scans the mass of names, trying to pick a face out of the crowd.
The effort is exhausting and fruitless. The only name that stands out is “Doro.” Whoever this woman is has printed her phone number below her name, in a different color of ink. Why? Are they friends? Maybe Joachim told her Helena was lonely. But if he told her to write her number, why didn’t he mention it? And why would he tell this woman to put in her number, knowing Helena’s trapped here all day without a phone, no way to call anyone? If she were going to call someone, it would be her parents, not some random person she can’t remember having met.
So that means it wasn’t Joachim’s idea. He must not know that she did it, or he would’ve said something. Does this woman have something to tell her, or was it just a meaningless afterthought? It’s impossible to guess the motives of a person she might as well never have seen. For all she knows, she hasn’t. Then again, all she knows doesn’t mean very much right now. The point is that this woman wrote down her number for a reason. And whatever other factors might be involved, the main reason for giving someone your number is so that person can call you.
She struggles to her feet then stands still a moment, propping herself up on her desk with her sweating left hand. Deciding to call still doesn’t give her any way of doing it.
She could wait until Joachim gets home and ask to use his phone. She borrowed it the other night to call her parents, but then it ran out of credit after just a minute or two, so she only had time to say she was okay, and hear that they were. His battery was dying, too, and he’d forgotten his charger at work. If her parents called back, it was after the phone died. And that was it. No mention of how she was getting along since the accident, or her decision not to separate from Joachim.
Did her parents know they’d decided to separate? She must’ve discussed the decision with them, with someone. And yet they hadn’t mentioned it, not even with a quick “How are things with Joachim?”.
There’s something strange about that. There’s something strange about a lot of things lately. Why is it so hard to make sense of everything? It can’t all be the amnesia. It’s the past she’s forgotten, but the present that she can’t figure out.
She feels dizzy from the strain of thinking and standing without her crutches. She picks them up and leans against the wall. Another aching breath. The room moves around her. Not quickly, but in sly, subtle ways, always glimpsed out of the corner of her eye. She can’t keep track of anything.
Again, she wants to escape from the apartment by any means necessary, wants to get down all those stairs, even if she has to ask her neighbor for help.
And then she has an idea. Why ask him to help an invalid down four flights of stairs when she can ask for a much simpler favor?
She starts for the door again, then thinks better of it. Better to put on some clean clothes first, brush her hair and wash her face. She doesn’t want to look like a crazy person. She’s just a neighbor who was in an accident, whose phone line is down. Not someone who’s escaped from somewhere. Even if that’s what this feels like.
Once she’s made herself presentable, she spritzes on some perfume, picks up the get-well card and hobbles out of the apartment. This time, she remembers to leave the door open.
She takes a deep breath before ringing the doorbell, although he probably already heard her clattering across the landing. She forces her face into a smile and gets all her explanations ready, the things to say so he won’t look at her funny or refuse to let her use his phone.
She’s so anxious about the impression she’ll make that it takes her a moment to notice that no one’s coming to the door. How long has it been? Two minutes maybe, certainly not as long as it feels like. She holds her breath a few heartbeats, then rings again. Maybe he’ll still come. Maybe he’s in the shower or having a nap. Maybe he’s on the phone himself. Never mind, she can wait.
She goes over the phone call in her mind. Joachim must’ve told everyone about her health problems. But how do you put that into words? Hello, this Helena; you must be Doro but I can’t remember who you are. Hi, how are you; can you tell me whether we were friends?
She feels the heaviness of time passing, its slow weight accumulating on her shoulders, pressing her flesh into the unyielding pads of her crutches. He’s probably out, will probably be out for a while. It’s a weekday afternoon, no guarantee that anyone would be home. Just because he was home once doesn’t mean he’s home every day. And if he is home, he’s not answering the door.
She feels something sinking in her, so low and heavy she’d like to lie down on this floor, not move until her neighbor comes home. And maybe not even then.
She doesn’t even know his name. Silly to pin all this hope on a stranger. So many people are strangers now, strangers to her, and yet they must still know her.
It’s not the end of the world, even if it feels like it. She moves back toward her apartment, pausing in the doorway with a last-ditch kind of hope. But no one’s coming up the stairs.
All afternoon she works with the door ajar, listening for the sound of footsteps. Twice more she makes her way into the hallway, rings the doorbell and waits. Like she wouldn’t have heard him coming in. When she finishes her work, she doesn’t even try to distract herself, but sits on the sofa, listening. It’s evening now; he has to come soon. Everyone has to come home sooner or later.
When she finally hears footsteps on the stairs, each one pounds within her louder than her own heart. She gets to her feet again, makes her way to the door and pulls it open, feeling that sad, fake, socially acceptable smile on her face again.
“Well, hello,” Joachim says. “Look at you all dolled up.” He’s holding a bouquet of pink and yellow roses in one hand.
It takes her a moment to understand. First she looks over his shoulder, as if the neighbor might be behind him; then she checks whether there’s any light coming through the bottom of his door. She let it get dark in her own apartment, she realizes; the sun went down but she never turned on the lights.
“These are for you.” He starts to hand her the flowers, then thinks better of it and steps past her into the apartment, closing the door and switching on the light.
The paper around the flowers crinkles as he unwraps them so it takes him, and Helena herself, a moment to hear that she’s weeping.