Shaila and Henry moved into the main house a few days later. They didn’t move any of their furniture. Even Henry’s clothes stayed in his closet. “We don’t want to raise suspicions,” he said. “Neighbors notice the strangest things.”
So Henry and Shaila played house. Shaila cooked dinners on a six-burner stove and Henry cleared up, loading the dishwasher, wiping down the granite countertops, sweeping a broom over Spanish tiles. Henry made coffee in the mornings — never tea. In the in-law, the rat trap with its almond butter grew dusty. I could hear mice in the walls still, and now and then I thought of joining them. But, well, me and high places.
I made myself comfortable in the in-law. Shaila got a job at Pegasus Books. “It feels good to be making my own money,” she said to me one day. “I’m doing it, Lothlorien. I can finally afford the Bay Area.” She smiled wide and real, like she believed what she was saying.
For a few months, we lived a good life. I’d spend the days roaming the Kensington hills, thick with succulents, with overhanging oaks and redwoods. I’d nestle into rocks that drank in the day’s warmth. In the evenings, I’d return to the in-law, watching the main house through my window. Some nights Shaila would stop in and see me. Some nights she would not. But soon — humans are such predictable creatures — the fighting began. Shaila’s cries drifted across the yard. Henry’s shouts were hard and cold as iron beams. Often he’d push her out their front door, Shaila reeling backward, catching herself on the patio railing.
When I think back, it’s hard to pinpoint when exactly the changes began. I can’t help but think it started a few weeks after the big move. (This is what Shaila called it, whenever she referred to the terrible death of Skye Wasserman. The big move.) Here was the first sign: I was alone one night in the in-law unit, asleep on the sofa. Through the silence of my midnight kitchen, I heard a scraping. And then a thunderous snap. It echoed through the empty house.
“It’s the trap,” I said aloud, to no one. I ran to the corner of the house and stopped. A screech, unmistakable.
A shift in the moonlight and there she was, a female mouse the color of dryer lint. Her head sat centimeters from the curl of almond butter, her neck nearly flattened beneath the U-bar. I hadn’t thought about the trap in months. The almond butter had fogged over with dust and I couldn’t have imagined another creature finding it. This one did. She was small. Her eyes, solid black, bulged from their sockets. The bar was supposed to flip and kill instantly, Henry had said. That’s what made the trap humane.
The mouse struggled, managed to drag the trap a few inches along the hardwood floor. And then she stopped. With each panting breath, her small body swelled and receded. At last, she sighed. Her eyes rolled up to look into mine.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
The mouse grew still, released a stream of urine. The yellow liquid trailed to the edge of a floorboard and ran in a rivulet along its seam.
Shaila came to me later that evening, her body shaking even before she saw the mouse. When she did see her, she cried out, picked me up, and held me to her cheek, where I could taste saltwater trails. “Lothlorien,” she whispered.
Henry burst through the door and I scurried into her pocket. “Fuck,” he said, crouching by the trap. “Well. Let’s get rid of it.” He turned to Shaila. “What’s the matter with you?”
From her pocket, I watched him fiddle with the U-bar, curse quietly, then pick up the trap, the mouse’s body drooping off its edge. At the outside garbage can, he threw them both in, trap and body together.
Shaila stayed in the in-law with me that evening. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” she said.
“Thank you for staying with me.”
She ran a finger between my ears. “I don’t know where he’s gone. He’s gone all the time now. I think he’s seeing someone else.” I rested a paw on her finger. “He can see whoever he wants,” she sighed. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m not letting him go.”
I won’t ever understand humans.
A week later, Henry pushed Shaila out their door again. This time, he threw after her an assortment of her belongings — a few shirts she’d managed to buy over the months, a pair of jeans, a phone.
Shaila found me in the in-law. She cried in great racking sobs, on her knees, holding her stomach. She cried until she could barely breathe, and all I could do was watch, my paw on her foot.
Dusk turned to night. “Can we leave now?” I asked.
She picked up her phone and dialed. “Papa,” she said, “come get me? I want to come home.”
It’s been a year since we left Henry’s house. A good year. Shaila’s at Berkeley City College now. She wants to finish in three years and go for an MBA. She’s been back home, living with her parents. There was no stepdad. Only Mummy and Papa, mild-mannered doctors, bewildered and terrified by her absence, ecstatic to have her home. Mummy would quite happily send me to the sewers, but Shaila keeps me safe in a cage in her bedroom, slips me into her pocket whenever she leaves the house. I’ve been auditing her classes on the sly, absorbing what I can of macroeconomics and Tolstoy.
It’s a late Saturday afternoon. The mist has not burned off, but hangs low and heavy over the hills. Shaila and I are on a bus, winding up those old familiar streets. In the in-law, Henry waits.
“Hi!” He’s breathless and bright-eyed when he opens the door. I search behind him for the willowy form of the new woman, but she is nowhere. “We’re alone,” he says.
I can feel the sad heave of Shaila’s chest, the thump of her battered heart. Henry places a hand on her chin, lifts it, and they kiss.
But it’s only a kiss, as they say, and a few minutes later, Henry’s in the kitchen, filling the water kettle. I jump from Shaila’s pocket. “Lothlorien!” she hisses. I find my old hiding spot. In the distance, the kettle rumbles to a boil.
Henry is still determined to talk about the murder, at least with his therapist, and Shaila pleads for his silence. He’s already told his acupuncturist, he says, and Shaila shrieks and shoves him in the chest. With a single hand, he shoves her back and sends her tumbling off the sofa.
Then he gets up, moves to the kitchen, and fills Shaila’s mug with water and a tea bag. He pulls his own Extremely Expensive Travel Mug out of the cupboard, and fills that up as well.
“I plan to head to the police station today,” he says. “If I have to serve time, I’m okay with that. If they trace things back to you, well, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for that.”
Shaila’s head sinks into her hands. She sits there, silent. I want to be with her.
Sometimes, an old rat gets a new idea. It seems, initially, like a very good idea, and eventually, like the only possible idea. As the tea steeps and the argument continues, this old rat climbs atop the fridge — the height is staggering, but I close my eyes and smell for what I need. And there it is. Still there, that old bag of poison.
Thank goodness for the precious materialism of the bourgeoisie. I rustle a strychnine pellet from the bag and drop it in his Extremely Expensive Travel Mug. He will die today, this man so adept at throwing away the bodies of women, this man so ready to ruin Shaila’s life.
I watch from my high perch, my nerves writhing. Henry takes the two mugs back to the sofa, and it occurs to me that he just might give Shaila his travel mug. The thought sends me squealing. He looks up, suddenly alert. Shaila pulls at his hand.
“Hey,” she says.
“I thought I heard something.” He takes her hand. “The thing is, Shaila, I’ve learned a lot about accountability. Cynthia — she’s taught me a lot. We’re in therapy together—”