L.S. Johnson

1959

 

1.

 

There was a point every evening when Elsa would look around and realize that the dinner rush was over, indeed had been over for some time. It always took her by surprise, even after months of working at the chophouse. Like everyone had sensed her exhaustion and up and went at the same time to give her some peace. She liked to think like that, liked to think that the customers were her friends, visitors in her large, wood-paneled living room, and she was just making sure they got a good square meal. It made it easier to deal with the jerks; it let her pretend that the large tip she got was for her kindness or her cooking and not because her uniform was too small. And when would Doug order her a new one anyway?

She could ask Mary, but Mary didn’t like to be asked; she left the day-to-day managing to Doug, said she didn’t have the head for it. Still, Elsa thought if she could just find the right moment, she could get Mary to do something. The skirt rode up when she bent down, and depending on the time of the month the buttons would strain and gap. The last time Elsa had asked Doug he’d yeah, yeahed her and added, it’s not doing you any harm, though. And it wasn’t; God knew she needed the tips. Her job was the difference between a good dinner for her husband and son and being on relief, and she had sworn never to go on relief again.

Still. As she cleared the table she looked at Mary out of the corner of her eye. All of the other waitresses were young and single, flirting with the cooks while the busboys flirted with them. She and Mary were older, and they both had little boys; if Mary were another waitress Elsa knew they’d be fast friends. Too, every now and then Mary would stand her a cup of coffee at the end of the night, and they’d chat a little, mostly about their sons. Elsa looked forward to that more than she could say. To be herself again, even in her cheap uniform.

A little more time, she figured. A few more good chats, and she could lean in close and say, Mary, do a girl a favor, can’t you get me a uniform that doesn’t make me look like a sausage?

As if in answer to her thoughts, a catalog suddenly appeared in front of her, and she felt a large, warm hand rest on the small of her back. Uniform Supply, the cover read, framed by a smiling waitress and chef. She turned to see Doug standing over her, his shadowed face unreadable.

“I can’t let you take the catalog home,” he said, “but if you stay after closing and pick out what you want, I’ll order it first thing in the morning.”

Elsa smiled as broadly as the waitress on the cover; it felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “Of course I’ll stay,” she said.

She phoned Robert and told him she’d be late, and then settled into the stock room with a cup of coffee and the catalog, squinting at the pages in the dim light. The styles were line drawings so she couldn’t quite tell which one matched the chophouse uniforms, and there were both half and whole sizes, and she couldn’t find the sizing chart, she kept flipping and flipping… She heard Doug saying goodbye to the others, heard the shutters coming down.

Her last clear memory was of planning to tell Doug to forget it, she couldn’t make heads or tails of the thing; everything afterwards came in flashes. Being held down across the boxes. Doug spitting words in her ear, dirty words no man had ever said to her before, and behind them a roaring noise like she was drowning. Choking on her sobs. He was so strong.

And when it was over, and she was fumbling with her clothes, why didn’t they go on right, why couldn’t she dress… when it was over he told her in his normal voice that if she told anyone he would fire her, and she would never get work in another restaurant, and he would tell her husband and her son and everyone in the entire damn city just what a goddamn slut she was.

Her journey home was a blur; she felt almost insensible until she finally managed to close the apartment door. Only then did she begin shaking. She dared not enter their bedroom, she knew that Robert would know and what would happen then? Instead she dragged blankets onto the couch and buried herself inside them, pulling them over her head until she was cocooned in a hot darkness, shivering as if she was riddled with fever.

There she lay, all night, fighting back tears, terrified lest she make the slightest noise and wake her husband and son.

When she heard the alarm ringing she made sure she was covered from head to toe, closed her eyes, and pretended to be asleep. The sounds of her son running around, Robert shushing him, it all made her feel sick and then ashamed of herself, for feeling so about her family.

Robert came into the living room to get his watch and she made herself limp and kept her breathing steady. But when he bent over her and touched her forehead she cringed and he whispered, “Coming down with something? You feel pretty warm.”

She nodded.

“Do you want me to phone the restaurant? I can call from the job site.”

At once panic filled her. “No,” she croaked, her voice loud. “I’ll call.”

“Tell Doug you need a day off. It’s the least he can do for keeping you so late.” Robert laid his hand on her shoulder, caressing her through the blanket. “He better make it worth your while. I don’t like you missing dinner. It’s not good for Bobby, you know?”

As he spoke her mouth filled with bile. It was all she could do to nod again.

“Get some rest,” he finally whispered, kissing her forehead.

There was the murmur of their voices, Bobby’s distant bye Mommy feel better that she could not bring herself to acknowledge. She didn’t want him to see, she didn’t want either of them to see her. Only when she heard the door shut did she let herself start sobbing, waves of grief so violent as to choke her.

She was still crying when she managed to get herself to the bathroom and onto the toilet. The feel of the toilet paper made her feel sick and lightheaded. And then she smelled it, it was everywhere, and she tore off her clothing and climbed into the tub and opened the taps completely. She cried again, though she felt empty of all tears. At least in the water she couldn’t smell herself, couldn’t feel herself.

The phone rang out, echoing in the tiny apartment. The noise jarred her; she realized the water was up to her neck, rushing out of the overflow as fast as it poured in. She needed to do… something, yet she could not think what, could only think that if she just stayed in the water nothing more could happen to her.

When the hot water turned cold she finally closed the taps. Her fingertips were shriveled. She could not look down at herself.

The sudden knocking felt like physical blows, making her mewl in fear.

“Elsa?” a female voice said.

Mary.

Elsa lurched out of the tub and seized her thin bathrobe, wrapping it tightly closed, then wrapped a towel over the robe until she felt cocooned.

Mary knocked again, three short raps and then a pause, followed by three more. Elsa started for the door only to hesitate. What if Mary knew, what if she had come to accuse her, even attack her? What had Doug said to her, what was he saying to everyone?

“Elsa,” Mary said, “I know you’re in there.” She paused, as if weighing her words. “I know what he did,” she said, her voice barely audible. “For God’s sake, let me in.”

Before Elsa knew what she was doing, she was across the living room, unlocking the door and flinging herself into Mary’s arms.

The smell of frying eggs made her stomach knot, but she could not bring herself to speak. Mary moved around the kitchen with tight, efficient gestures that seemed to indicate either unease or a barely contained anger.

“I knew when you didn’t show up this morning,” she said as she slid the eggs onto a plate. “I knew then. Before—” the word came out so clipped she paused to swallow, then repeated, “—before, with the young ones, half of them would get on the next bus home, the other half would try and blackmail him.” She put the plate in front of Elsa. “I honestly thought you were too old for him.”

She stared at the plate—the eggs swimming in grease, the toast almost as yellow as the yolks—and tasted bile again.

“What did he tell you?” Mary asked.

She could not look up at Mary; she was terrified of what expression she might find. “That I’d never work again if I told anyone, and he’d tell Robert I’m a…” Her throat closed around the word like a fist.

“Eat.” Mary sat down across from her, folding her trembling hands one atop another. For the first time Elsa realized just how smooth Mary’s hands were, how pristine her manicure, yet her engagement ring was as tiny as Elsa’s own. She took up the fork and managed to get a piece of white between her lips; the scummy texture made her gag.

“I want to divorce him,” Mary said in the same tight voice. “I can divorce him, if you’ll sign a statement saying what he did.”

Elsa looked up at her then, and wished she hadn’t. The grim face staring at her was terrifying. “A—a statement? Mary, I can’t… I haven’t even told Robert, I couldn’t bear it if he knew. How could I face him—”

“I’ve looked into it before,” Mary said, speaking over her. “I could do it by myself, but it would be costly, he would fight me tooth and nail. It’s really mine, you see. Doug manages the restaurant and that’s our income, but he started it with my money.” She stared at her clenching hands. “The divorce is useless to me unless I can keep the restaurant, and he’ll fight me for it. Unless I can show a judge what he really is.” She met Elsa’s gaze squarely. “I’ll make it worth your while, don’t you worry.”

“But I can’t tell Robert,” Elsa said. She had started weeping again. “I couldn’t last night… and if I tell him now he’ll ask himself, why didn’t she tell me when it happened?” She looked beseechingly at Mary. “Please, I just want to forget. I don’t care about the job, we’ll get by. I just want to forget.”

“Then Doug will say he fired you, and he’ll spread it around that you propositioned him.” Mary spoke the words flatly. “I know how he works, I’ve seen it before. I married an animal,” she added under her breath. “A goddamn animal.”

Elsa understood the words, understood what they meant, but still she couldn’t quite believe it; it felt as if it was all happening to someone else. Finally she asked, “Will I have to appear in court?”

“No. Just tell my lawyer what happened. Once you sign the papers you’ll be done with it all.”

“And the police? Won’t they want…evidence?”

Mary snorted. “Who said anything about the police? There’s no point in telling them anything. You washed away all the evidence.” When Elsa began crying harder she took her hand, holding it as if she was unsure of what to do with it. “Look, Elsa. Even if you hadn’t cleaned… you know, we both know that wouldn’t have been enough. They’d have wanted to see bruises, ripped clothes; they’d want witnesses who heard you hollering for your life. You know it, I know it, and God help us, Doug knows it.”

Elsa stared down at the shimmering white and yellow on her plate. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll tell you what I know: what I’m offering you is the only thing that will get you out of this without putting your family on skid row.” She suddenly squeezed Elsa’s hand, so hard Elsa yelped in pain. “You can’t survive without two salaries. I can see it just by looking at this place. I’ll pay you what you were getting, and you won’t even have to work for it. You just have to help me get rid of him.”

Elsa’s fingers were starting to go numb; only then did she notice on the back of Mary’s tightly gripping hand was a spray of fine, red bumps like pimples, each with a tiny black center. Where had they come from?

“What about your little boy?” she whispered.

Mary’s grip increased. “Better he grow up without a father, than be raised by the likes of him.”

The taste of egg in Elsa’s mouth was like something rotting. She couldn’t think on what to say or do, she could only sit there, her eyes endlessly leaking and her hand tingling and throbbing. At last she nodded, and sighed with relief when Mary let go. Quickly she brought her sore hand to her chest, massaging it to bring the blood back to her fingertips.

And then she held out her hand between them, staring as a rash of red dots broke out across her sore knuckles.

She stayed home sick for three days.

On the fourth day Elsa told Robert she was going to the doctor, but instead of going to their family doctor she went to a specialist. There she handed over her small savings and took off her blouse, showing him the bumps everywhere: patches on her back, on her arms, all with different shades of brown at their centers.

She did not tell him how she opened one with a straight pin and teased forth a tiny brown feather, wet with a clear liquid, spreading its miniscule barbules as it emerged into the light of the bathroom.

The specialist gave her a cream that cost her the grocery money in her pocketbook, suggested she change her laundry detergent, and sent her on her way.

On the fifth day Elsa told Robert she was going back to work, but instead she put on her best day dress and dark stockings and a long-sleeved jacket and gloves and went to the heart of the city, where she met Mary at her lawyer’s office. There she told what had happened in a small, sobbing voice, ashamed to raise her eyes despite the lawyer’s gentle tone and the hand he laid over hers. While they typed it up properly she drank a very strong cup of coffee and wondered why everything felt so wrong: why she didn’t feel better for telling, why Mary still looked so grim, why everyone else looked so pleased at hearing what had happened.

When the typist brought in the clean copy she reached for a pen to sign it, only to be stopped by Mary, who touched Elsa’s gloved hand with her own. “You’re sure it’s enough?” she asked the lawyer. “To get everything? I want to break him, not just divorce him.”

“Mrs. Phillips,” the lawyer said with that pleased smile on his face, “with all your evidence, and now this? You’re going to clean him out; he’ll be lucky to leave the courtroom with the shirt on his back.”

Slowly Elsa picked up the pen and signed. Beside her Mary exhaled, as if releasing something that she had long held inside; at once, though, her sigh became a hacking cough. She hunched over in her chair, coughing and spluttering, waving away the lawyer’s offer of water; Elsa leaned over her and pressed a handkerchief into her hand.

“Thank you,” Mary muttered. She stayed hunched over, coughing into the handkerchief and dabbing at her eyes and face. At last she sat up and tucked the handkerchief into her purse, so only Elsa saw the black feather gummed to the cloth.

 

2.

 

Elsa slid the raw eggs into the pan, careful not to break the yolks. Bobby liked his eggs just so, he liked to eat all the white right up to the edges of the yellow circle, then cut a single small opening in which to dip his toast. He was like his father in this: the precision with his habits, wanting everything to be just right.

Elsa knew she was no longer just right; she was becoming less right with every passing week. Neither the doctor’s prescription nor her own lotions had done anything to stop the rash that now covered her from head to foot. She had tried vitamins, powders, baths with salts and baths with oils; still the bumps spread and swelled, some with white heads now, some with nearly black ones as well as brown. Her family believed she must have eaten something poisonous, she would have to be patient and let it work its way through her; when they said this Elsa had thought Mary but kept her mouth shut.

Had Elsa’s mother still been alive she might have said something different. Her mother had often told her bedtime stories that weren’t in books, stories from the old world, stories her mother’s mother had told, and her mother before that, and so on… Stories of women who were changed into things, river rocks and fleet deer, nightingales and sparrows and tall, twisting trees: always they were betrayed by someone and then swiftly changed, to save them from a worse fate. And then she was no more of this world, her mother would always finish, and then she would pretend to show Elsa something from the woman in question—a leaf, a feather. But such endings had never felt like escapes to Elsa. They felt like condemnations, and her dreams would be filled with monstrous images of animals with women’s faces, their silent mouths screaming endlessly.

Only now did Elsa understand her child-self had been right, that those stories weren’t fantasies. They were warnings.

She wasn’t escaping anything; she was being imprisoned in her own body. The bumps kept spreading, and her joints ached. Her fingers and toes curled when she rested, and her elbows were becoming stiff. What would happen if she became too sick, too strange-looking, to go outside? Who would help her, who would care for her?

She knew in her heart it would not be Robert, and she would not so burden her son.

As she arranged his food on the plate she looked at Bobby’s bowed head, and beside him her stony-gazed husband, still staring at the front of the newspaper like it was the world. Mary’s lawyer had called to discuss her statement—Elsa hadn’t expected anyone to call her, she had thought once she signed the paper it was over—and Robert had taken the call. His first rush of anger had been horrible but also a relief, she had spent so long anticipating it; what she had not anticipated was that he already believed her to have been unfaithful with Doug, and the statement merely confirmed what he had heard.

So much said in the days and nights since, that could not be unsaid.

She could only think of two people who might have told him such a thing, and only one who could have done so without getting punched.

She put the eggs before Bobby, kissed his head, and hurried back into the kitchen. The smell of her son in her nostrils. Robert slept on the sofa now, and only responded when she told him basic things: what was for dinner, who had phoned during the day. All the money was in his name, and if he started talking to a lawyer—? Only now did she see that her statement might work against her just as it had worked against Doug.

Even if she could afford a lawyer of her own it would get ugly quick, and she would have to relive it all. And Bobby… to put him through all that, what would it do to him?

Could she bear to let her son go?

She began washing the pan, watching her reddened hands in the water as she scrubbed, her knuckles flexing white with the effort—

—and then stared, open-mouthed, at the line of erupting bumps along her hand and forearm. Small brown tubes jutted out from her irritated skin, their tufted ends waving like tiny ferns in the water. She raised her hands, turning them one way and another, and then ran a soapy finger along the lines of feathers, marveling at their plastic feel, at how the tufts were already drying and softening.

Only then did the enormity of it hit her. She pulled at a feather, trying to remove it, but the pain was swift and shocking: it was in her, it was part of her. Still she raised her hand to her mouth and bit down hard on the shaft, wrenching and pulling until at last it came free. At once the wound began to bleed, not the bleeding of a normal scratch or scrape but freely, copiously bleeding, splattering red across the countertops and sink, dyeing the dishwater pink as she fumbled for a clean towel and pressed it to the wound.

Elsa bent low over the sink then, swallowing her sobs so Robert and Bobby would not hear, for she understood, at last, how everything she had ever imagined about her life to come had been lost the moment the first bump appeared.

She had expected another apartment like her own, a tiny, cramped space among dozens like it, but as she made her way to Mary’s address it was as if she had crossed into another world. Here were large, sprawling Tudor cottages, with actual lawns and pruned shrubbery; here were flowers, spilling from pots and twining their way around railings. Elsa had never known the neighborhood existed. Even the city noise seemed muffled, as if she had passed through some kind of bubble to reach this place.

She found the house and was again surprised: it was one of the largest, with gabled windows and a quaint little turret. It was something that belonged in a wealthy suburb, not here.

It was all my money. How much money did Mary actually have? Until now Elsa had been debating her approach, because she hadn’t believed, couldn’t believe, that Mary would utter such a lie, and to Robert no less. But this storybook house, the pristine lawn and the lace curtains and the driveway, that she actually had a car—oh, it made something grow hot and tight in Elsa’s stomach, made her hands into fists so that she had to punch the doorbell with a reddened knuckle.

When the door swung open she pushed her way in before Mary could protest, storming into the silent, pristine living room and rounding on her. “What did you say to Robert?”

Mary shut the door and locked it.

“He’s filing for divorce, Mary. He’s filing for sole custody.” She was trembling with anger. “You said nothing would happen. No trials, no police, just make a statement. You got what you wanted. Why did you do this?”

Mary looked at her levelly, then angled her head. “Drink?”

“Damn you, answer me,” Elsa ground out. Her own tears were blinding her; she wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, only to yelp as the tip of a feather poked her.

“Well, I’m going to have one.” Mary went to the little cart in the living room; in the silence there was only the sound of Elsa’s shuddering breath and ice clinking against glass. At last Mary said, “I didn’t intend to say anything to Robert. He came up to me in the playground the other day, my son was standing right there. What was I supposed to say in front of him?” She downed two fingers of Scotch and poured another. “They’ve been teasing him at school, saying things about Doug… so I thought, there’s no reason for him to know the truth about his father, not now. So I told him and a few of the other mothers… I said it was an affair, I just meant to soften it a little. And then all of a sudden Robert was there, I mean he came to my son’s school for God’s sake, and all those snoops were listening to us, waiting to catch me out.” She suddenly rounded on Elsa. “What would you have me say?” she yelled.

“The truth,” Elsa yelled back. “The goddamn truth! What about my boy? Robert’s taking him away, Mary, he says I can’t be trusted!”

Mary took another long sip. “You know,” she said in a normal tone of voice, “I think I did you a favor.”

The words brought Elsa up short. “What?”

“You heard me. I did you a favor.” She took a step closer to Elsa, her eyes narrowing. “I think you didn’t want to tell him because you knew, deep down, that he would never believe you. What kind of husband believes a stranger over the woman he supposedly loves? What kind of husband lets the mother of his son go to work each day looking like a slut?” She finished the second drink and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “And then he comes to me—to me—asking if there was any funny business between you and Doug? In public? In front of my son? I don’t think he gives a damn about you. I think you’re just a thing to him, like a car, and you’re just not running right anymore.”

With a cry Elsa flung herself forward, hitting Mary as hard as she could; they tumbled onto the carpet. She pushed herself up to sitting and brought her fist down, once and again, trying to beat away the smirk on Mary’s face.

On the third blow, there was a cracking noise; Elsa froze, her hand raised. Behind the blood and the bruising weal on Mary’s nose was something else, something black and shell-like. She looked at the hint of beak, then at the blood on her own spotted knuckles, and sat back with a whimper.

“Maybe we deserve this,” she whispered. “Maybe it’s a curse, we brought it on ourselves, all this deceit and ugliness…” Her eyes were running, running. “God, why didn’t I just tell him that night…”

“Because he’s a man,” Mary said, her voice garbled; she rolled her head to the side and spat blood, then propped herself up on her elbows. “Because you know that no matter how you explained it, he’d never touch you again. Not after that.” She made a cutting gesture with her hand. “We’re changing because of men, Elsa. All the gods are men. All the doctors are men. All the cops and the judges and the shrinks are men. If Doug had done that to a man they would have hung him from the nearest lamppost; if a man suddenly started spouting feathers they’d have a cure within a year or worship him like he was the goddamn Second Coming. Us? Oh, we’re hysterical, we’re crazy, we can’t be trusted… and when we try to say no, this is what we get.” She staggered to her feet, touching her nose gingerly. “If you ask me, this is just an allergic reaction to all the men in our lives.”

The furious outpouring made Elsa cringe, but not as much as it would have, once. “You shouldn’t speak like that,” she said to the carpet. “You should think of your boy—”

“My son hates me,” Mary said flatly. “Thinks I drove his daddy away.” She tapped the black spot with her fingernail, wincing at the clicking sound. “He told me the other night either I let him live with Doug or he’s going to leave the day he turns eighteen and never see me again. He’s started getting into fights at school… now I have to decide whether I want to raise a delinquent, or let Doug raise a monster.”

She went over to the cart and poured two more Scotches; when she held one out Elsa got to her feet and took it. The amber liquid burned her throat. Robert never let her have liquor…

But Robert wasn’t around anymore; Robert would probably never be around again.

“You always think you’re different,” Mary said, her back to her Elsa. “You get married and you see other women’s husbands and you think, not me, my guy won’t ever go around chasing skirt like that. You have a son and you think, not my boy, he’ll never go bad, he’ll never be disrespectful or cruel like those other kids.” She looked at Elsa and her eyes were red. “My son is going to leave me all alone like this!”

She shoved her sleeve up to her elbow, revealing lines of molting feathers, small and fine like new blades of grass.

Elsa stared at her; and then she smiled. “For the love of Christ, Mary,” she said, “why would you ever want him to stay?”

When she returned home the apartment was dim and quiet. There were a last few boxes of Robert’s things by the door; the bedroom suddenly seemed large without Bobby’s narrow cot against the wall. The silence pressed in on her, it made her skin crawl, and with a racing heart she hurried into the living room and turned on the radio. The familiar orchestration, the first crooning words, they all soothed her:

 

And now the purple dusk of twilight time

Steals across the meadows of my heart

 

She moved around the room, turning on lamps, smoothing down her hair as she prised off her hat and coat. Her whole body was tense; she realized she was listening for footsteps in the hall because she hadn’t made any dinner, and what would Robert say if he came home and there was no dinner waiting?

But she didn’t need to worry about that anymore.

 

Love is now the stardust of yesterday

The music of the years gone by

 

As she went to hang up her things in the bedroom she paused before the dresser mirror, staring at herself. Her face was mottled with bumps like she was a teenager again, but even more frightening were her eyes: they were veined with black, as if a pen were bleeding into the whites. Her eyesight was fine—better than fine lately, the world had taken on a purplish tint that seemed to yield a new sharpness. Now as she gazed at herself she realized that she could actually see it, she could see the black feathering outwards, it was filling her eyes—

she clapped her hands over her face like a child and when she looked again it was still there, though now her reflection swam from her tears.

 

But that was long ago

Now my consolation

Is in the stardust of a song

 

Elsa stood in the little bedroom and cried, her coat and hat slipping to the floor. She cried for herself, for Mary; she cried for her son and the lies she had told him to ease their parting; she cried for her empty room and her empty arms and her body that was leaving her, for her own fear and loneliness, for all the women who had ever been hurt so, for all the women made birds.

 

3.

 

The knocking, loud and sudden, made Elsa squawk with fright. It took a moment to calm her fluttering heart and turn down the television, a complicated process of hooking the dial with her fingernail and nudging it. She had always been proud of her hands, how small and shapely they were, but they were nearly gone now. Her fingers had first become painfully stiff, then fused into three clawlike digits. Now calluses were growing over what had been her finger joints, just before the first line of feathers.

She waddled to the door, trembling with both nerves and hope. It was the wrong day for her grocery delivery, and rent wasn’t due for a week yet. Perhaps Robert had brought Bobby to see her at last, or perhaps it was Mary, perhaps with all her money she had been able to find a cure, something to undo it all.

But when Elsa looked through the peephole, there was nothing.

She turned off the overhead light, then seized the chain with her beak and tested it, making sure it was securely fastened; only then did she open the door a crack.

Before her, on the ratty welcome mat, was a paper grocery bag with a note clipped to one side. Elsa couldn’t see inside the bag, but she could smell it: meat and spices and something that she had only recently learned to identify.

Seeds.

Crouching low, she eased one clawed hand through the gap, hooking the bag and pulling it to the door. The note wasn’t a note but a postcard, a picture topped with fancy calligraphy: Philomela and Procne. The light in the hallway was dim, but in the last few weeks Elsa’s eyesight had become nothing short of remarkable, the world taking on a purple-tinted sharpness that let her see even the gnats that made their way through her window screens. Now she tilted the postcard to see the whole image, only to cry out.

Two women with the heads of birds, their spread arms sprouting wings.

“My Nana was like you,” a voice said from the left.

Elsa jerked backwards, terrified; she tried to shove the door closed but it caught on the bag.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’m Doreen, I live downstairs.” A housedress and apron suddenly appeared, filling the gap between door and frame. “I—I saw you the other night,” she continued, dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Taking out your trash. My Nana went the same way, and I just thought…”

She trailed off; Elsa could see her hands wringing atop her apron. Slowly she rose to standing, taking in Doreen’s wide-eyed face, the flush in her cheeks.

“My momma used to make that meatloaf for Nana, she always liked it.” Her blush deepened. “And I thought… my husband’s away for a few days, and you don’t seem to have anyone who can do for you.”

Still Elsa just looked at her, her breath coming in whistling gasps through her beak. As frightened as she was, she could not stop staring at Doreen: there was a strange mottling on her arm and jawline, some kind of discoloration.

Elsa could think of very few things that would mark a woman in just those places.

“Well,” Doreen said, ducking her head. “I’m, ah, I’m downstairs in 2B, if you ever need—”

“Wait,” Elsa said quickly.

That is, she meant to say wait, but it came out as another squawk; still Doreen paused as Elsa worked the chain off and opened the door completely. Only then did she realize she was letting this woman see her, really see her, when she could barely look at herself and dared not go out save in the dead of night.

But Doreen just smiled. “You look like her,” she said. She reached out and stroked Elsa’s shoulder, and the sensation made Elsa’s eyes well, made the purple world shimmer for a moment.

“Coffee?” Elsa asked, and this time she didn’t wince at the sound of her own voice.

“Really?” Doreen’s smile grew warm, open. “I’d like that.”

She bent over, picking up the bag, and Elsa saw it then: how she flinched at some pain in her arm, how for a moment her skin rippled with the first hint of a rash that just as quickly faded. For now, but what might happen when next he struck her, or hurt her in some other way? Or when someone else—a friend, a relative—talked her into paying him back, only to use her for their own ends?

There could not be so many Marys in the world, Elsa could not believe it; yet she could see it in this woman, like something sleeping.

But if she could see it, maybe she could stop it.

She stepped aside and let Doreen in.

 

R is for Rare Birds