He always sits me on his good side, but I know why he hides under the mask. He’s a monster under the mask, disfigured and ugly.
I push a bite of salmon into my mouth. It’s flaky and salty, but I don’t taste anything. The corners of my mouth have healed, and the angry red tracks across my cheeks from the ropes are gone when I look in the mirror. My body takes in food and water and heals itself. But whatever’s broken beneath the surface doesn’t change. At least you can tell, looking at him, that he’s suffered.
“Your mom,” he says after chewing and swallowing slowly. “Will she be looking for you?”
“She won’t care.”
“Have you talked to her? Told her you’re okay?”
“With what?”
“Fuck,” he says, raising his hand like he might run it over his face. When he touches the mask, he drops his hand to his lap. “I’ll get you a phone tomorrow.”
I shrug. I decide I’ll call him the Phantom, like the masked man from the opera.
“Why hasn’t she called the cops?”
“She won’t.”
“Oh.” He sits back on the barstool, working his tongue around inside his mouth. “She sounds like a peach.”
I don’t argue.
“I’m going up to water my plants before it gets dark,” he says, rising from the island to take his plate to the sink. “Why don’t you come? Get some air. It’ll be good for you.”
He takes my plate and wine glass without asking if I’m done. I sit at the island while he cleans up. Each morning, he dresses like he’s going to an office, but every time I wake, I can hear him moving around his apartment, living. His closet is full of different shades of grey slacks and pressed dress shirts in every color. He rolls his sleeves up tan forearms before rinsing the plates and setting them neatly in the stainless-steel dishwasher. Everything here is immaculately clean and organized. I can’t imagine him getting his hands dirty.
He opens a door and pulls a small tool bag from a shelf, then gestures for me to follow. I think about staying, but there’s no reason to disobey. He pulls down a drop ladder, and we climb up into a tiny attic space with exposed insulation and a door. Opening it, he steps through into the blue evening.
The door opens onto a flat roof that’s full of potted plants in different sized containers. Leaving me in the doorway, the Phantom unwinds a hose from a spool, turns on a faucet knob against the wall near the door, and starts spraying water over a rectangular box filled with curly purple and pink flowers. Their perfume lures me out onto the roof. I haven’t breathed outdoor air in a week. It’s moist and heavy, clinging to my bare arms like algae.
I can hear traffic in the distance, but from the roof, I see only the same field that I can see from the huge windows in the loft below. The grass is tall and brown from winter, but green pokes up in small patches on the ground. I walk to the edge of the roof. I wonder if he’d stop me if I stepped over. There isn’t even a railing. It would be so easy. It would all be over.
I look back at the man who pulled me from the swamp, who went to such lengths to find me and bring me back. He crouches to poke in a big, round pot. His back is to me as he pulls on a pair of gloves from his bag. I could do it. It would be quick.
“I got you an appointment at the women’s clinic on Wednesday,” he says. “To be tested for STDs. You can take my truck and bring it back when you’re done.”
I step closer to the edge, until my toes are even with the end of the flat roof. I look down at the parking lot below. Try to remember why being up here is better than down there. I lift one foot, watching it hang suspended in the air, like a diver.
He looks up when I don’t answer. His gaze moves to the edge of the roof and back to my face. Our eyes meet, and I know he can tell what I’m about to do. I wait for him to say something, to be angry or afraid. To demand to know what I’m doing, if I want to die.
“I’ll bring a chair for you next time,” he says, unfolding slowly, cautiously, from his crouched position next to some sprouting plants. I watch him move, how comfortable he is in his body, how confident. He’s quick but unhurried; tall and slender, painfully elegant. He’s built like a dancer, all slim lines and measured grace.
He’s at my side before I know what’s happening. His strong hands are gentle on my upper arms as they pull me back. “Good girl,” he says softly, drawing my shoulder blades flush with his chest.
I know he’s thanking me for not jumping, for letting him pull me away, but in truth, I don’t have any more desire to die than I have to live. It’s not worth the effort.
“You can come up here with me every day,” he says when I don’t answer. “You could use some sun.”
We stare out at the overgrown lot next to his building without speaking. His breath is even, his hands barely holding on. But I can feel his heart thudding rapidly against my back with each heavy beat.
I scared him. The thought registers in some distant way. He wants me to live.
What I want seems equally irrelevant to both of us. There’s no point in telling him, so I don’t, and he doesn’t ask.
five
Royal Dolce