MIDMORNING, and my morgue-silent house fills with a brilliant light that only occurs this time of day and year, when the low winter sun hits my southern windows and bright, dusty beams flood my downstairs. This sudden burst of sunshine makes me realize there are some curtains I haven’t closed, so I do.
Then, I think, What the hell am I going to do?
Should I call the police to tell them about the gun in my planter and the man stalking me? Tell them about another man named Freddy Starks who is looking to exact a pound of my flesh?
In the lowest points of my life, police were involved. I remember the sirens of their cars in the distance as I was bleeding to death exactly fourteen years ago today. A vague notion of one of them looking over my body and saying “bloody hell” over and over. I don’t want to call the police. What can they really do, anyway? Arrest me in connection with a drug dealer’s murder, and probably little else.
So I just sit here, rattled with indecision, impotent to effect change. This lasts literally hours.
Change instead comes to me, and it does so with the ring of my doorbell. In my years here, I don’t think I’ve ever had more than one visitor in a day.
Freddy Starks. It has to be.
I grab the bat. There’s no way I’m opening the door, but he’ll find a way in. He knows I’m here.
Another ring. Impatient, only seconds after the first.
Shouting erupts on the other side of the door.
“Alice! Open up!”
That’s not Freddy Starks. I know who it is, and it’s the last person I would expect on my doorstep.
I drop the bat and race to the door, then open it.
Thomas is standing on the porch. A red welt paints an imperfect circle around his left eye.
He very nearly smiles as he says:
“Happy anniversary.”