His wife is already in bed.
Patrick swirls the last inch of Jim Beam in his glass, the ice barely smaller than when he poured himself the large shot. Lights off, TV on, sound off. Letterman swimming onstage in his huge suit, the monologue in mime. It looks twice as phony without any sound and he turns it off.
Now the room is lit only by the white blaze of the city. He walks his drink over to the high windows for the wide-screen view, the nebulous glow of Times Square hanging low in the sky to the north. And then Patrick’s gaze pulls to the east, the Empire State Building lit up tonight like a Popsicle, its tip colored cherry and lemon.
It never gets old, he whispers.
No, but you do, Paddyboy.
One last gulp to ease him sleepward, his reset button at the end of another jobless day. Thirty-eight years old and cast out.
In the kitchen, dark beyond the city light, he cracks the fridge door to see what he’s doing, ditches the ice, leaves the glass in the dishwasher and heads to the bathroom. Brushes and flosses. Swooshes the mouthwash extra long, bourbon-free, minty fresh.
When he creeps into the bedroom, his wife is asleep. Patrick undresses quietly in the dark, peels back the covers and tries to drift down like a feather. But as he lets the mattress take the last few pounds of his flesh, it happens, the very thing he was trying to avoid. And although not unexpected, it comes out loud enough that he jumps.
His wife screams.
He spins and hits the switch on his bedside lamp. Turning back he sees her fighting the sheets, her body twisting and bucking, a sense of arms pinning her down in her shrieks.
Shh, he says, it’s me, just me. It’s Patch, there’s nothing wrong.
As he touches her shoulder she screams again, harder, arms scrabbling free of the bedclothes. Now he knows to be careful, she’s trying to fight her way out. Only once before has it gone that far, once before when she screamed about a man holding a gun to her head, ran to the kitchen, pulled a knife from the rack and started to prowl. That night he had stayed pressed to the bedroom wall calling out to her, It’s Patrick, hun, Patch, honey, holding a pillow doubled up at his chest. It had taken her five minutes to wake. Murmuring, shivering, pacing. Where am I? she said to him when she returned to the bedroom empty-handed.
He found the knife stuck in the backrest of the leather armchair, a long gash spilling fluffy white guts. He had used it that day to debone and butterfly a half leg of lamb.
And that night, the night on which she had eviscerated the armchair, Patrick’s mistake had been to reach for his wife too hard. So tonight he knows he shouldn’t grab, he has to whisper her loose from the dream without becoming part of it.
And now she’s halfway free, legs kicking the covers.
It’s Patrick, shh, it’s Patch, just Patch.
She pushes the sleep mask onto her forehead, wincing at the lamplight.
What is it? she asks, quieter but still terrified.
It’s me, honey, nothing happened.
What did I do? she says.
Nothing—he strokes her arm—you did nothing.
She flinches but doesn’t recoil, her jaw rigid, her good eye wide and blinking. Nothing happened? she says. What did I say?
Nothing, he says, soothing her, shushing her.
She frowns and pulls down her sleep mask. There was a pen, she says, I lost the pen.
We’ll find the pen tomorrow. There’s nothing to write now.
No, the pen for the rabbits, silly, she sighs. Too much snow.
Shh, he says, stroking her hair, go to sleep.
Don’t let him hurt me, she says, pulling herself under the comforter. You promise you won’t let him hurt me?
Shh, he says, shhhh.
Mornings after, she remembers only the screaming, not the words. But even so he can’t lie to her. Because how can Patch make a promise to his wife that he’s already broken?
Go to sleep, Hannah, he says, stroking her hair. Shhhh.
* * *
THURSDAY, FIRST THING, THEY DON’T speak of it, weaving themselves between each other’s mornings, talking weekend plans when they cross. She doesn’t remember and he doesn’t want to remind her. Not today. Because there is something else she has forgotten but he will wait for her to bloom with the sunlight. Every new day for Hannah begins with a gradual unfolding, forty minutes of groggy, the fog of night slowly fading.
Her morning grog, he calls it, like living with a drunken sailor. Stumbling about, swearing at stubbed toes, spilling coffee, dropping things that bounce under the bed or skid beneath the sofa.
And then, transformed, Hannah outshines the day.
Patrick maintains the same routine, the same apartment patterns as a month ago, before he got fired.
Let go, Patch.
Sorry, Hannah. Before I got let go.
Once he hears no more splashing from the shower, he starts to make coffee. When he takes the mug to the bedroom she is sitting at the edge of the bed, wrapped in a towel, brushing her dark hair. And yet not dark, he supposes. Because it is bright. Hannah’s hair shines like brown glass.
She smiles as he lowers the coffee, droplets of water on the ridges of her shoulders, in the scoops of her collarbone. He likes her like this, freshly misted, free of makeup.
Hannah reaches for the eyepatch and pulls it over her head, lifting her hair up and over the elastic. Thank you, she says, adjusting the patch, a glossy black satin. For a moment it makes him think of a mussel shell. A shell cupping her absence.
Sipping her coffee, she looks up at him with her good eye. Mmm, she says.
Bright blue eye, dark-but-bright hair. Married for exactly four years and still she surprises him, not only with her beauty, the unique blend of her, but most of all with her presence, the improbable fact of her close to him.
Patrick pulls his hand inside his sweatshirt sleeve and dabs his wife’s wet shoulders. The card is tucked behind him in his waistband. Happy anniversary, Hannah, he says, producing the envelope.
For a moment she looks disappointed, gripping the towel at her chest and accusing him with her fierce eye. And then he realizes that her look isn’t disappointment in him.
It doesn’t matter, he says. You can get me one later. Or, you don’t have to.
Yesterday Hannah worked the crime scene of a triple homicide in Chinatown, three women gunned down in a nail salon at lunchtime, the shooter’s ex and two customers. She spent the afternoon gathering the facts, trying to speak to Detective McCluskey—who always slips the best details to Hannah—filing her copy for the newspaper by five. And when she came home, she started to cry, one of the deceased three months pregnant. So is he supposed to feel hurt that Hannah didn’t find a spare half hour to track down a card store and trawl through its colorful racks?
Anyway, this has become an annual tradition of sorts, her forgetting their wedding anniversary. Three times out of four. Almost quaint.
No, it’s not OK, she says, sucking her lips into her mouth.
Don’t worry, he says. Open it, then.
The flap is glued down only at the tip. She works her finger in and pops it up without tearing. She even saves the envelopes.
Hannah takes out the card, reads the words to herself. Closes it. Holds it to her chest.
You’re so sweet, Patch, she says.
Don’t tell anyone.
They already know.
She beckons him down and they kiss.
I have a dark side, he growls.