Page 46 of Beneath the Poet's House

“You have great timing. That sounds perfect right about now.” She pauses. Something about Roberto’s opening comment was sticking for her, like a spot she couldn’t rub clean. “What was the whole mysticism humor thing again?” she asks.

Roberto chuckles. “Oh, it was nothing. Just a dig at ol’ Poe.”

“Poe?” Saoirse feels a chill, like moth wings, at the back of her neck.

“Poe couldn’t stand transcendentalists. Wrote a whole story that was a thinly veiled critique of those responsible for the movement. Thought their ‘mysticism’ and symbolism turned their poetry into the flattest kind of prose.”

She can practically hear Roberto shrugging, but her mind is churning, contemplating what he’s said. Odd, that Poe despised those individuals with whom his fiancée would have surrounded herself. A strangeparallel, since Emmit has been lukewarm, at best, whenever Saoirse’s mentioned her transcendentalist friends.

“Anyway, where do you want to meet?” Roberto asks.

She shakes her head to clear her thoughts. “How about Carr Haus?”Who am I? Just last week, all I wanted was to curl up under a blanket of Paxil.

Paxil. Entresto. She shoots a look toward the kitchen then down at her phone. Ten o’clock. Wherever she and Roberto end up going, she needs to take her medication before leaving the house. She promised herself she was going to start making her health a priority, and here she is, an hour late taking her meds. Not only that, but she needs to find a cardiologist and psychiatrist now that she’s settled in Providence. Her New Jersey providers won’t prescribe to her indefinitely. She’s worked too hard finding the perfect balance of drug interactions to risk having a lapse in her treatment.

“What was that?” she asks, coming back to the present yet again. “Sorry, I zoned out for a second.”

“I saaaid,” he starts, drawing the words out, “let’s skip Carr Haus. That’s not even a you-and-Lucretia place anymore, it’s a you-and-Emmit one.”

“Oh, please,” she says, mock-irritably. “But fine, no Carr Haus. What do you suggest?”

“How about the Ath?”

Saoirse freezes.

“Saoirse? You still there?”

“Yes. Sorry. I’m here.” She can’t be weird about the Ath; Roberto will ask too many questions. “That sounds fine.”

“Meet you there in twenty?”

“See you then.” Saoirse hangs up, takes her medication, and is about to head out when her phone dings again. Thinking it’s Roberto, Saoirse eyes the screen, but the text is from an unknown number. She opens the message:

It’s Aidan. Why’d you block my number? I’m going to find you, Saoirse. I’m GOING to talk to you. Just respond, agree to meet, and make this easier on everyone.

Saoirse throws the phone across the room. She is trembling. Aidan didn’t sayagree to meet somewhere in Providence, so it’s possible he still doesn’t know she’s here. But he gotanothernew phone, which means he’s going to start texting her relentlessly again. She wants to call Roberto back and cancel, but she also doesn’t want to be alone, so she forces herself to grab her bag and leave the house. She walks the ten blocks between 88 Benefit Street and the Athenæum looking over her shoulder every few steps.

Ten minutes later, still jumpy, Saoirse stands before the trickling fountain. Her eyes roam over the carved granite leaves and elongated letters. A fly whizzes past her right ear, then doubles back and circles her left one.

“Buzzoff,” Saoirse hisses, and swats the air so hard that she misjudges her proximity to the fountain. The back of her hand smashes into the thick granite, and her brain goes blank from the pain. She doubles over, sucking air through gritted teeth. Something warm snakes over her fingers, and Saoirse looks down to find the skin along her knuckles is raw and broken; the deepest scrape oozes blood.

After several deep breaths, she forces herself to straighten. The stream of fountain water fills her vision like a mirage. Unthinkingly, she jabs her hand forward and lets the cold water run over the bruised tendons and aching bones. It flows into the series of scrapes, washing the blood down the scalloped stonework and into the lower basin. When she pulls her hand away, more pink-tinged water runs off her fingers to disappear into the cracks of the city sidewalk.Once you drink from the fountain, you can never leave,the couple walking down the sidewalk told her just one week ago.

Drinking it would be one thing,Jonathan says,but what does the legend say about filtering the water straight into your bloodstream?

Saoirse whimpers and shakes excess water from her skin. The throbbing has lessened to a dull ache. She looks one way then the other—no Aidan, and no one has witnessed her run-in with the fountain. Saoirse rubs her palm across the leg of her jeans and starts up the stairs.

As she reaches the library entrance, Roberto calls out from behind her. “Hey! You beat me here.”

She waits while he jogs up the stairs, more grateful to see him than she’d expected, and they enter together. Saoirse focuses on Roberto’s easy gait and the casual way he greets the librarians rather than the vivid memories of spending time with Jonathan at the Ath now joining her anxiety over the text from Aidan. That those memories are all pleasant, coupled with the knowledge of what her and Jonathan’s relationship would become, causes a dissonance that nags at her as persistently as her injured hand.

She wonders what Roberto would say if she told him about her husband. Shealwayswonders what people would say if they knew the truth of how Jonathan had changed from a normal, fun-to-be-around guy to the veritable prison guard he’d become.Why didn’t you just leave?she imagines they’d ask. That question simultaneously infuriates and demoralizes her.Imagine the frog in the pot of boiling water,she can see herself saying.Then imagine that, during the first few instances of the water warming by a few degrees, the frog was also systematically belittled, worn down, stripped of its agency, and gaslit out of taking the very remedies that could have motivated it to escape. Do you see now? Do you see why leaving wasn’t only not an option, it was as likely as starting a little frog pond on the dark side of the moon?

“We could see if the Art Room’s available,” Roberto muses.

“No,” Saoirse says quickly. Too quickly. She needs to stop letting her mind wander before Roberto starts to question her sanity. Still, the last thing she wants is Leila Rondin finding her near a table of artifacts for an upcoming exhibit. “One of the alcoves is fine.”

When they reach the second floor, Roberto turns left. He passes the first alcove and veers into the second. Saoirse follows, wishing she’dinsisted on meeting at Carr Haus, after all. She takes in the multipaned windows, the bust on the sill, the straight-backed chair pushed neatly against the empty desk.

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