Matilda

Matilda sat bolt upright in her bed in Jetty’s house.

Breathing hard, confused, she looked around. Everything was wrong. Her dresser and armchair were brown with thick dust. The windows were grimy, the corners filled with cobwebs, the sills littered with fly corpses. The many books on her shelves were shrouded in dust and webs as well. The air smelled stale, unused.

Like the room hadn’t been lived in for years.

Matilda shut her eyes and shook her head. A dream. Another dream. I dreamed I left town in a snowstorm and now this …

She opened her eyes to the same scene. Turning, she looked to the place on her nightstand where the picture of her and Jetty should be, but it wasn’t there. An empty space. Her heart pounded harder, her head felt tinny.

This isn’t right.

Matilda’s head snapped up when she thought she heard a baby screaming, but the sound faded too quickly to be sure. Goose flesh rose on her arms and as she moved to rub the skin, she noticed the book and the typewriter. Sitting at the foot of the bed, spotless and clean.

The book was thin, trade paperback size. “A Thousand Sleepless Nights by Louis Winston,” she read aloud, her whispered voice loud in the grubby room. On the cover, a pearl-white full moon rose over a generic set of jagged mountains, skirted by an indigo expanse of open land. There were tall grasses around the edges, bent as if by a stiff wind. The moon made Matilda think of Jetty, and her stomach tightened. The pages were rippled from being wet at some point.

She picked it up.

Thousands of books had passed through Matilda’s hands. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps. But none like this. Never before had a book made her fingertips burn, the skin on her neck grow cold, or her heart struggle to pump blood into her arteries.

This is not my book.

Compelled by a strange feeling, she opened the book. In black ink, written on the dedication page were the words For Matilda, in a slanted, broad-stroked handwriting, like a man’s. Water had made the ink lines puffy, bleeding into the paper. Bleeding.

Everything went cold.

A blackness roiled in the back of her head, a crushing sense that something was wrong. But it’s not my book … She flipped another page, thinking, My middle name is Louis, after my dad’s grandfather. The dedication caught her attention. She read it out loud in a cautious whisper, “‘For my wife, who breathed life into these once-pathetic stories and awakened my shy heart with her shining brilliance and sublime beauty.’”

Tears came to her eyes, emotions she didn’t understand stirred up by the words.

Lowering the book to her lap, she surveyed the typewriter. It was beautiful. Something about it made her want to smile, but how could she be happy about it? It was certainly old, but well kept. Someone had cared for this machine. The dust-free keys gleamed in the sunlight. Another sound made Matilda startle—this time the clack of keys—but it too faded before she could lift her head.

I’m hearing things and hallucinating.

Matilda looked around her ruined room again and suddenly needed more clean air to breathe. With the book locked in her hand, she fled the room, leaving the typewriter resting on the bed. Running down the stairs, through the derelict living room, kitchen, and out into the wild backyard. Jetty’s lovely yard laid half dead in overgrown chaos. Weeds chocking the flowers, the thin, papery grass grown to shin-height. The garden beds a mess of more weeds. The sight made tears roll down Matilda’s cheeks. How could this happen overnight?

Matilda spun in a circle and then stopped. She closed her eyes and gripped the odd book to her chest. “This is a dream,” she whispered. “Wake up, wake up.”

“Matilda?”

Matilda spun around, realizing for the first time she was in her pink nightgown and barefoot. Thea stood at the fence. Jetty’s house stood on a corner lot and the backyard chain-link fence faced the side street. Matilda blinked and then frowned. Thea was at least six months pregnant.

“Oh my gosh! It is you!” Thea’s eyes went wide.

Matilda’s head pounded so hard she couldn’t see clearly. She took a couple steps toward Thea. “Thea?” She’d grown her hair out into a soft bob, curling just under chin. She looked older, different.

“Yeah, yeah. It’s me. Plus one, of course.” She placed a loving hand on her swollen belly.

“But … but how?”

Thea threw back her head and laughed. “Well, I won’t give you the intimate details, but about two years after you left …” She paused awkwardly, like she had said something forbidden. Quieter, she finished, “Parker and I started dating. We’ve been married for a little over a year.” Her brow furrowed as her hand rubbed absently at her stomach. “Matilda, are you okay? You look … sick.”

Matilda put the heel of a hand to her forehead and pressed hard. The book in her other hand felt extremely heavy. After you left … But she hadn’t left. She’d wanted to, but woke up in her bed. She hadn’t actually done it. This was the next day after that night. The morning after … Isn’t it? Her eyes lifted to her dirty bedroom window.

Thea married Parker …

“Do you want me to get Dr. Wells?” Thea called out. “Are you gonna faint or puke or something?”

Matilda pressed her eyes closed. “Thea, what is the date?”

“Huh?”

“The date! What day is it?” Matilda yelled.

“Good grief. You don’t have to be rude!” An impatient huff and a sideways glance at Matilda who felt ready to attack Thea, despite the baby bump, if she didn’t hurry up and answer the question. Thea frowned. “It’s May 3, 1998—of course. Sunday. I was just going to church—I’m late, as usual … Tilly?”

The earth shifted and then nothing.

n

“Well, there she is! Welcome back—in more ways than one.”

Matilda blinked up into the wide, rectangular face of Dr. Richard Wells, Silent Fields’s physician. The familiar sight of his droopy gray eyes flooded her mind with memories of annual office visits, shots and lollipops, and one broken finger after a fall from the school monkey bars.

“I’m a little worried about your blood pressure, Tilly.” Dr. Wells held out a hand and helped Matilda sit up. She was still in the overgrown backyard of Jetty’s house. He pulled a cuff off her arm and folded it into his black bag. “Can you tell me what happened? What brought on your panic attack?”

Panic attack? Yes, there had certainly been that. But what was she supposed to do when she woke up in Jetty’s ruined house and it was six years later than she expected it to be? She looked up at Dr. Wells, hunched over her, his giant-like frame shading her from the morning sun. “I … I’m not really sure.”

His eyes narrowed in concern. “How did you get back into town? Did you drive? Did you sleep last night?”

“I …” Matilda looked passed the doctor’s shoulder. Thea was still there, watching nervously as she chewed her thumbnail. Her pregnant belly. Parker’s baby. Parker, the man Matilda was going to marry, and then … “I think I had a nightmare. Or something. I’m really disoriented.”

“Have you been sick? Any illnesses in the last six years? And what are all these scars from?” He pointed to her arms, left leg, and right cheek.

Matilda shook her head, dizzier at the sight of her own body. There were pink slash marks on her forearms and a long nasty gash on her left shin. She touched her face and found a few small indentations near her jawline. She couldn’t pull in a breath. Those weren’t her forearms or leg or face. That wasn’t right. She’d never been hurt like that.

“Matilda?” Dr. Wells lifted her wrist to check her pulse. “Take a slow breath, dear. Your pulse is racing. What’s wrong?”

“I don’t … I don’t know.” She couldn’t take her eyes off her left leg. Suddenly, it hurt, a bite of pain strong enough to make her cry out. She grabbed at the limb, but the pain had already gone.

Dr. Wells put a hand on her back. “Take some breaths. Breathe for me.”

Matilda tried to breathe, but nothing in her body worked right. Nothing in her head made sense.

“It looks like you broke your leg. Here.” He pointed to her scar. “And it didn’t heal very well. How did you do that?”

She didn’t have an answer. How can I not remember breaking my leg? She couldn’t look at the scars anymore. She felt violated. She looked around the yard instead. “What happened to my house?”

Dr. Wells furrowed his brow even further. The look made Matilda nervous. “Matilda, you left town, remember? Without a word. None of us knew what to do. Greg Flounder had a yard crew come by the first few years, and I think he still pays the utilities, but he hasn’t been in good health lately, so some things have fallen to the wayside.”

“But I didn’t leave …” Matilda clamped her mouth shut when the concerned look on Dr. Wells’s face deepened. He’s going to commit me. Maybe he should. Matilda hurried to stand up, which became an awkward exchange of Dr. Wells trying to assist her and then her assisting him when his old knees stiffened.

He cleared his throat and brushed at his blue dress shirt and red tie. “Why don’t you come back to my office with me? We can figure things out.”

Matilda swallowed, looked at Thea, and then back. “No, no. I’m fine really. Just a bad night. I got back late and went right to bed and was just a little disoriented when I woke up. It’s a little weird to be here.” Not a lie. “I’m sorry for the trouble.”

“It’s no trouble. Are you sure? I gotta say I’m more than a little concerned.” He placed a large hand on her shoulder, turned her, and pointed a small flashlight in her eyes. “No signs of neurological problems. Did you hit your head?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Bad choice of words.

Dr. Wells nodded. “Are you sure you won’t come back with me?”

“No, I’m fine. Sorry to scare you. I’m fine. I’m home, aren’t I?”

Dr. Wells smiled. “Yes. And it’s real good to see you again. We’ve missed you. We’ve worried. And Jetty would be so happy to have you back in the house.”

The emotions in his words made her want to run, to scream, but she smiled and mumbled, “Thank you.” She looked around nervously. The mysterious book was on the grass. She picked it up and tucked it to her chest.

“Well, if you insist on staying here, please take it easy. Rest, eat something hearty, and call me if you don’t feel any better. Okay? Promise?”

Matilda half smiled. Dr. Wells said the same thing at the end of every examination. “Yes. Promise. Sorry if I pulled you out of church.” She took a few steps toward the back door.

He laughed. “Don’t be. You did me a favor. Reverend Claude was going on and on like he does. I was half asleep when Thea tapped on my shoulder.” He smiled over at Thea and then back to Matilda. “I’ll call you later to check in.” He retrieved his bag from the dead grass and then, with a wave, went out the gate. Matilda watched him walk down the street, ignoring the weight of Thea’s stare.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Thea called out. “You’re limping.” She looked pointedly at Matilda’s left leg. “And what are you doing here? I mean, it’s your house, of course, but we were all beginning to think you’d never come back. It’s been so long. And the way you left …”

Matilda met her eyes and then looked away. It’s been so long. “Thanks for getting Dr. Wells, Thea.” Then she opened the screen door and went inside without looking back.