She presses a hand to her heart. Gasps, “There’s a man here? In my home?”
Her face goes white. She makes an offhand effort to peer over her shoulder and into the vacuous foyer as I take another step forward, one that gets my toes just inside her home. But only my toes. She resists, grasping the door hard and putting a foot behind it. She nearly shuts the door in my face. I lose balance, stumbling back onto the concrete stoop.
“I saw him in the window,” I tell her, pointing at the staircase behind her. “Upstairs. A man in the third-story window,” I say, and at this she relaxes visibly and smiles. She shakes her head and tells me that there’s no one in the third-story bedroom, her voice so sure that for a second I believe it. She says again that no one’s been in that room for months. Not since the squirrel incident, and then I think she’s going to rehash it for me, the whole story about the squirrels inhabiting the third floor. I know now that it isn’t true because there were never squirrels in that room but rather a man, my father, who she’s been hiding from me all these days.
“The attic ladder,” she tells me this time instead, “it’s a pulldown thing,” at which, like a mime, she grabs for an imaginary string over her left shoulder and pulls. “Broken for a couple of months. Wouldn’t you know it,” she says, “the exterminator managed to break the darn thing. I just haven’t gotten around to getting it fixed.”
“But I saw him,” I insist, and she says quite simply, “You must be mistaken. There’s no one there. Because how would anyone get up there, Jessie, without a ladder?”
It seems so sensible, the way that she says it. And for a fraction of a second, I doubt myself as she hoped I would do. But then his image returns to me—him standing there in the window, looking out at me—and I know that she’s lying. That she’s keeping him from me. Hiding him from the world just as Mom has always done.
“Let me in,” I insist, pushing the door against the weight of her, and she says to me, “Now, now, Jessie. You had a bad dream, that’s all,” but of course this can’t be true.
“You were dreaming there was a man in the room,” she says to me. She reaches out a hand to mine but I pull briskly away. “Just a bad dream, that’s all. It will all be clearer come morning.”
“I know what I saw,” I tell her, voice cracking. But her face is suddenly so pacific, so kind, and she asks if I’d like for her to walk me back to the carriage home so I don’t have to go alone. It’s dark out, she says. Hard to navigate the way. “But not to worry,” she tells me. “I know this yard like the back of my hand,” and she reaches for my arm to lead the way home. She winks at me and says, “And besides, I have a flashlight.” And there it is, in the pocket of her robe. She flicks it on as if this conversation is over, as if she’s put my worries to rest and now I can go home, feeling assured that there’s no man in this home. No man watching me.
But I yank my arm away. “Why are you hiding him from me?” I ask. My voice becomes elevated, high-pitched, defensive. “Why don’t you want me to see him? Why don’t you want me to know that he’s there?”
And then I let slip the one thought that’s put down roots in the back of my mind, that’s replaced all logical thought.
“Why are you keeping my father from me?” I scream.
Her face falls flat and she goes white, even whiter than she was before. She shakes her head, presses a hand to her mouth but says nothing. Nothing at first, before she carefully breathes out, treading lightly, “You’re quite sure you saw a man in there?”
My heart nearly sings in relief. She believes me.She believes me.
I nod vigorously.
“Perhaps you’re right then. Perhaps someone is there,” she says with concern as she draws back the door and lets me in. “Why don’t you go see,” she suggests.
I think of my father, so close within reach. I soar past Ms. Geissler on the staircase, taking the steps two at a time up to the second floor. There I stand beneath that little hatch that leads up to the third floor. I listen for footsteps at first, hearing nothing, but remembering that I’ve stood here before and heard something.
He was here that night. Standing above me. Was he trying to contact me, to get my attention? To let me know that he was here?
I reach for the cord and give it a tug. The ladder unfurls before me, unfolding into makeshift steps. Two of the steps are split. Another is missing, just as Ms. Geissler said.
She warns me, “The steps, Jessie. They’re not safe,” though I go anyway, clutching the hand railing, which is unstable at best. “Bring the flashlight with you,” she says, attempting to hand it to me. But I don’t take it.
“There’s a light,” I tell her. “I saw the light. I don’t need a flashlight,” but she tells me to take it anyway, as she gives it a shake. I take it only to appease her, tucking it under the crook of an arm.
I begin to climb. I move slowly, walking though I want to run. The fourth step gives on me, splintering, and I shriek.
“Jessie!” Ms. Geissler yells, asking if I’m okay.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I say, gripping the railing harder and pulling myself up and over the broken step.
Ms. Geissler makes no attempt to follow, but stands instead at the bottom of the stairs. She crosses her arms against her chest, watching as I go. She tells me to be careful. She tells me to go slow.
I reach the top step and hoist myself into the attic. The room is murky. Out the open windows, the sun is lost somewhere beneath the horizon. It’s still nighttime, and yet there’s a flush to the sky. Morning will be here soon.
I barely make out a lamp, the same lamp that for the past few nights radiated light. One of those old Tiffany-style lamps, with the stained-glass shade. But when I go to turn it on, nothing happens. The lamp is dead, the lightbulb burned out. I turn the knob around and around but still nothing happens. All I hear is the idle click that mimics my heartbeat.
I orbit the room, looking for him. I trip over things that I can’t see. I hold my breath and listen, but I hear nothing. “Hello?” I ask, more begging than inquisitive.
“Come out so I can see you,” I whisper to the man. My father. I tell him I know that he’s here. That I want to see him, to meet him. That I’ve been waiting my whole life. I take small steps around the room, using my hands as a guide. My heartbeat pounds in my ear as I hold my breath, listening for breath, for footsteps, for him. A game of Marco Polo.
“Marco,” I chant aloud to myself, but there’s no reply.
