When he returned home that night, Barton found Roslyn asleep. He thought it strange to see something so familiar in a different setting: Roslyn dozing, not in her apartment in Wolfe’s Hotel, but instead in his own house, in the guest room that had never held guests before. He decided it was not an unpleasant sight. It gave the place a homey feeling—having another person there, enjoying its comforts. At the same time, Barton was grateful Roslyn was asleep. After the awkwardness of the morning, he was unsure what to say to her.
And the next day, she was still asleep when he left for work. So, it wasn’t until that evening that he spoke to her for the first time since she’d gotten to his house thirty-six hours earlier.
Meanwhile, Barton wrote banknotes by the dozen, his hand steady, penmanship precise. Good handwriting is the mark of an honest man, his father used to say. If only he could see Barton now. Barton had always been a dutiful servant of the bank. Diligent and precise in all matters. He took pride in his good work, but it earned him nothing except ire, suspicious stares as he walked the streets, mean names behind his back. Once, at a café, someone spit in his omelet. Now he was throwing all that good hard work out the window. He felt no guilt. Why should there be guilt? He owed no one his loyalty, his diligence, or his precision.
All he felt was the thrill of the taking. Thirty percent loans were on offer for anyone who came into the bank with so much as a look of wanting to borrow money. No one questioned him. The Dwellers, if they overheard these conversations, ignored them. He found this to be an exceptional time for him. A radiant time. As if the shimmer he had seen the night of the fire had taken him over, making his whole being bright. Brilliant. That was the word. He felt brilliant, in all ways.
On his way home from work that night, Barton walked through Trent Alley, thinking to do something kind for his houseguest. The street—mostly small wood structures in close quarters—had been almost entirely gutted. The only shop Barton found open sold an odd amalgam of items: boots, paint, flour, mugs, pillows, seeds in packages with no labels. Barton asked the shopkeeper if he had liquor. The man began to pull jars of liquid from behind the counter until Barton saw one the color of what he’d drunk with Roslyn.
“There,” he said. The shopkeeper smirked like he knew something Barton didn’t.
Though he came bearing a gift, upon first entering his house, Barton could not find its recipient. He searched the parlor, bedrooms, and hallways, calling her name. Pinpricks of anxiety clustered at the nape of his neck. What if she had left and gone to the police after all? What if she told them who she was and where she lived and who she’d been with the day of the fire? But why would she do that? Guilt? Fear? Wasn’t it in her best interest to stay hidden with Barton? Why give up such safety?
He sat in his chair and tried to work through the situation. There was no need to give in to irrational thinking. He was a newly brilliant man, after all. The key was simply to get Roslyn back to the house before she had a chance to speak with anyone, and if she’d already done so, to find a way to intercept that person as well. Surely, everyone involved could be reasoned with. And if not reasoned with, perhaps bought? Barton had extra money. Why not wield that power? That was how he should have handled Roslyn to begin with. No need to keep her with him at all times when a simple bribe would do.
It was then, still and quiet for the first time since entering the house, that Barton heard something. He followed the sound out to the backyard. There she was—on her knees, her face dangerously close to a blackberry bramble. The sound Barton had heard was a guttural sound, a retching sound. It was Roslyn vomiting into his bushes.
He stood and watched her. He’d never seen a woman be sick before. He’d never considered the possibility that women were capable of such things. But then, other than his own mother, Barton had spent little time with women, and this made it difficult for him to picture them engaging in many normal, human activities. When he did think of women (who were not his mother), it was almost exclusively for masturbatory purposes. These fantasies had not, in the past, involved anyone puking.
He didn’t want to interrupt. When she was finished, Roslyn pushed herself up from her hands, tipping immediately to the ground on her right side. Her knees remained as they were, but now her torso was twisted in such a way that her head and one shoulder were also touching the grass. She looked toward Barton.
“I didn’t want to make a mess inside,” she said. “So I came out here.”
“That’s all right. I don’t like those blackberries anyway. Too sour.”
He could tell she hadn’t heard his response. Her face was red from her exertions and her eyes had gone dim. Barton wondered if she might throw up some more, but after a moment it became clear that she had passed out in that strange posture.
Barton observed her a moment longer before deciding the thing to do was to help her inside. He knelt and wrapped his arms around her. He found her body awkward and heavy, and he was afraid he might not be capable of moving her anywhere. This was upsetting to him mostly for the thought of the neighbors discovering an unconscious woman in his yard. But eventually he did get Roslyn up to a standing position, and from there she was able to walk with his assistance.
She was hot to the touch, feverish. Anyplace Barton’s body connected with hers instantly bloomed with sweat. She muttered things that were not words. Barton wondered if she had acquired some sort of disease. More likely, though, she’d just made herself sick with drink. Perhaps she did this exact thing every evening, only normally she would have vomited in the alley behind Wolfe’s Hotel, instead of in Barton’s blackberry bushes. But how much alcohol could she have consumed? The flask they’d shared the day prior had been almost empty already. Barton had no alcohol of his own in the house.
Maybe this was the problem. Barton had heard that a drinker who stops drinking all of a sudden can become ill. He laid Roslyn on the bed, then went for the jar he’d bought in Trent Alley.
“You should have some,” he said, holding it out to her.
“No,” Roslyn said, with a sudden lucidity. “I don’t want that.”
Barton offered food. She declined. He brought a glass of water instead. She took a few tentative sips before returning it to him. She closed her eyes, head to pillow. He picked up the blankets and arranged them on top of her. This was not something he had ever done for another human being—tuck them into bed—but here, it felt right.
After that, Barton went back to the kitchen and had his dinner, which he ate quickly and hardly tasted. Then, he retired to his parlor as usual to read, but the book he was currently engaged with could not hold his interest. He set it down and looked over his bookshelves for something different.
He couldn’t concentrate on the second book either. He found he could think only of Roslyn. This was new. In the past, when he’d thought of her, it was always in a practical light. What time might he visit her at Wolfe’s Hotel? Was he able to spend a whole hour, or did he have to get back to the bank sooner? And even in the past two days, he’d thought of her in terms of his own preservation. Roslyn’s place in his mind had always been a matter of business.
Now he thought of her in another way. It was a sexual way. This had been, of course, Roslyn’s role in his life from the beginning. But normally, when Barton had sexual thoughts, they were focused on himself. His needs, and how to get them met. Roslyn was merely the vehicle. Suddenly, he was thinking of her separate from him. He was thinking of her body and the heat that had radiated from it when he helped her in from the yard. He was thinking of her hair, wild on the bedroom pillow. He was thinking of how she had looked pitched toward the blackberry bushes, and how that image had disgusted him, but it was also, now that he reviewed it, somehow enjoyable. Was it enjoyable because it was disgusting? Was it her weakness in contrast to Barton’s strength? Was it the odd posture of her body, affording him a new view of parts of her he did not usually consider, even when naked and on top of her? He had no idea. He could not sort it out and quickly stopped trying. He allowed himself instead to enjoy the images of her as they arrived in his mind: heat, flesh, sight, smell, sweat, hair, blankets. He sat and thought these thoughts until he was very aroused and decided he would like to go join the real Roslyn in the spare bedroom. He saw no reason why he shouldn’t.