“What kind of deal did you make with him?” I ask. “Did you have to fuck him? Was that part of the deal?”
She sits on the couch, her legs tucked under her. Her eyes widen and turn to her lap. “No.”
“Don’t lie to me.” I’ve never felt this angry, this sure of something in my whole life. “Did you fuck him?”
“No,” she insists.
“Look me in the eye and tell me that. Tell me, ‘I did not fuck him.’”
She puts her face in her hands and shakes her head, then starts rocking back and forth. I can feel it now. I can tell she is going to break. I feel satisfaction coming on along with a new sense of nausea. The whole situation is unreal, and I don’t want it to be happening, but I have to hear her answer. I have to hear it.
This time I yell. “Did you fuck him?”
She looks up at me. Tears stream down her face, but she looks me in the eye and says, “You bastard, you goddamn bastard. No. I did not fuck him.”
I stand there watching her, waiting for her gaze to break, but it doesn’t. It seems like we are frozen like that for hours, yet it is only a matter of seconds before she mumbles the next words
“He gave me a second option.”
My gut twists in on itself. Even though part of me is so completely sure she slept with the real estate agent to get our house, there’s another larger part that thinks the whole idea was ridiculous. And now these words. Second option.
“And what was that?” I ask. “What was your second option?”
She stands up. Her eyes flash. “Why can’t you trust me? You’ve never trusted me.” She storms out of the room.
The next night, the buzz of flies is so loud I can hear it through the ceiling like a muffled power generator. I wait until Ellen leaves, get my gloves, and climb into the attic again. The smell is intense.
It’s a dog this time. A big German shepherd, lay across two beams on its side, it’s back haunches and snout sticking above the pink insulation. Is it the same dog I’ve seen the Solomon’s out walking night after night? My God.
It’s hard work removing it. The thing is heavy, but again, the insides have been scooped out.
I confront Ellen about the dog. It is strange accusing my five month pregnant wife of this deed. Accuse? That is too harsh of a word. I question her. But instead of pleading ignorance and acting shocked and disgusted, she just stares at me. Looks me in the eye. Tears run down her cheeks as she says, “I told you, I did not fuck him.” How do you respond to something like that? I shut down. Walk away. Sit at my desk and stare at a blank computer screen for over an hour.
Even though we spend that night in the same bed, we might as well be on opposite sides of the world. The space between us seems infinite and cold. I can barely sleep, and when I do, it is only for minutes at a time.
At work the next day, I realize I have never met our real estate agent, Mr. Wishlow. He is faceless and dark in my imagination. He looms like a giant shadow in the corners of my mind. I can barely get any work done. When my boss asks what’s wrong, I tell him I can’t talk about it. I mumble something about family troubles.
When I get home, I find Ellen groaning in the bathroom. Her face is ashen. When I ask her what is wrong, she breaks down and collapses in my arms. I feel her tears warm and wet on my shoulder. “What is it?” I ask.
“The baby,” she says. “The baby.”
She crumples to the floor, her body heaving. She’s hysterical. Blood trickles from beneath her skirt.
I take her to the emergency room. They tend to her, give her a sedative, tell her everything is going to be all right. A young intern takes me aside and tells me Ellen has miscarried. He asks me what she did with the fetus.
I make no secret of placing the ladder beneath the attic opening, of donning gloves, of climbing into the attic, staying on the beams, of screaming with rage when I see it, a tiny hand poking through the pink insulation. I lift it and cradle it in my arms. It’s so small. So light. Dressed in doll clothing to hide the cut. I climb carefully down the ladder, balancing it in one hand.
“When does it end?” I ask her.
She won’t look at me. “It’s over,” she says. “It’s done.”
Can I believe her? When will it really end? How far does she have to go? Was I part of the deal? Was I included in this escalation of sacrifices?
When I ask her this, she replies quietly, “I could never hurt you.” I stand and wait for her to say something else. I watch her as she walks away, her head bowed down, weary and defeated. At that moment, I believe her. At that moment, I feel my heart colliding against my rib cage. What pain she has gone through. What heartbreak. An ugly sound breaks from my throat. I am overcome by loud, body wrenching sobs. To want something so bad…
I run to her. Put my arms around her. Tell her how much I love her, how much I need her.
Two weeks have passed and things are almost back to normal. I outfitted the well room with a comfortable chair and a table full of her favorite books. I sawed a hole in the door at eye level and moved the television at an angle where she can see it. I let her have the remote control.
I don’t believe she’d ever try to kill me. I would hope not. After all, I love her with all my heart. I always have. But still—
I don’t entirely trust her.
Not quite…
Pran’s Confession
The young men in Bangkok sometimes called him Grandpa or Uncle as he clutched their lithe oiled bodies. His fingers grasped a bit too tightly; his nails dug into their skin and drew beads of blood. Sometimes he’d choke them, but never enough to kill them. He had to be careful. He was gaining a reputation among them, and a reputation was something he had to stay away from. But it was hard not to let the old feelings overcome him, the memories flooding into his mind of how it once felt to watch a life quickly fade behind the suffocating film of a plastic bag.
Samnang startled. He clutched frantically at his shirt pocket. The piece of paper was still there.
It was a long, tedious train ride from the Thai border in the northwest to the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. He slept most of the way, getting out to stretch at Battambang and again at Pursat, where he ate a quick meal of fish soup. He fell back into another short, fitful nap. Hard to sleep because of the dreams. His dreams of Pran.
There were other dreams, too, other nightmares of those times. Dreams of Duch, the prison’s director; his parchment-like face, teeth too big for his mouth, his death-like smile. How could one not have nightmares about him? But it was Pran who coaxed Samnang back to prison S-21. Not the nightmares of the beatings, the beheadings, the children in black peasant garb with red scarves, suffocating men and women with clear, plastic bags — men and women who could’ve been their parents.
No.
It was the simple dreams of Pran whispering to him in a voice worn down from days of screaming—
“You took my soul.”
The train pulled into the Phnom Penh Train Station. Samnang got off with a small backpack. He pulled his New York Mets cap down low on his forehead and looked out over the waters of Boeng Kak. Tendrils of dawn reached out over the lake’s surface revealing the shapes of small boats and early risen fishermen setting out nets.
He felt for the piece of paper folded in his shirt pocket. Rubbed his fingers absently over the tiny protrusion it made against the shirt’s fabric. A tremor ran along his arm up to his shoulder. His tongue felt dry. He wanted to lay down here as the sun rose, shut his eyes to the sound of the cormorants and egrets, and sleep for a hundred years. But he knew if he did that now, Pran would continue to come to him in his sleep. Plead to him forever—