Page 107 of The New Couple in 5B

The words come from another place inside me. A secret place, the real me.

“I can’t be the wife you want me to be. I can’t live this dull, bookish life with you,” the bad girl inside me says. “I want to be free.”

And even though I’m weeping, I’m rejoicing inside because yes, yes, it’s true. And she’s right, that terrible, selfish, wild girl my mother was always chastising and punishing. I can’t be this person. I can’t live this life.

His face. I’ve never seen the expression that settles there. Blank with rage.

And then he’s on me, my sweet, gentle husband.

He hits me so hard across the face that I stumble backward, trip over a dining room chair, fall heavily to the floor. My ears ring, jaw and neck vibrating with pain.

No, no. It can’t be. He would never hurt me. Other men, like my father, they yell and slap, grab your arm and say cruel things when you don’t give them what they want. But not Paul; not kind, lovely Paul.

My child, I think too late, wrapping my arms around my middle.

I see the gun on the dining room table then, but not before his hands are around my throat and he’s on top of me.

He’s so impossibly strong for such a slight man.

I choke and claw, my fingernails digging into the skin of his hand, but he doesn’t even seem to feel it. His eyes are black with hatred, and there’s no air, so I have no voice. My limbs flail now, useless as butterfly wings. Panic is a siren and my vision fades to stars, a galaxy before my eyes. I swing my arms at him, but slowly all the strength drains from me. And it’s like those dreams where you can’t fight back, no strength, no air. Then like a miracle, the pain subsides, and after all, Iamfree.

I float above my poor body, which is pinned beneath him. I see my thin limbs gone motionless.

“How could you? I loved you,” he roars.

I might say the same, but I have no voice.

I am nothing and no one, floating above us as he collapses over my silent, still body, wailing my name in all his rage and misery and wretchedness.

I rise higher and higher, and he crawls over to the table, sinks into the seat at the head, reaching for the gun. He doesn’t hesitate but puts it to his temple and squeezes the trigger.

The sound, from this far distance, is just like the pop from a champagne cork, and I think about all those wonderful nights with my love, not my husband. The lovely, genteel Abi, so good to me, so full of life. A doorman by day, proper, slim, vigilant. And by night, my lover, my dance partner, a creature like me who comes alive after the sun sets and the music starts to play.

Higher, higher.

The ceilings are made from fog and I can see all my neighbors, living their lives. The actor is sleeping fitfully. And the model is entertaining a man; they linger over dinner. The young mother tucks her children into their beds. I see her, then—Ella, as she presses her ear against the wall between our apartments.

Her smile is pure evil.

Down below, at his doorman’s station, Abi has his head in his hands.

Is he crying? Does he miss me already? I wish I could say a better goodbye and tell him that I made a horrible mistake, that we should have run off together, damn the consequences.

And the child inside me. It belonged to him.

thirty-four

The door to the office behind the doorman station swings open and I step inside, Sarah right behind me.

“Shut the door and lock it,” I say, turning on the light.

“What are you doing, Rosie?” she asks, petulant and young just like when we were kids, but does what I say.

The room is disappointingly spare—a desk with several monitors, a tidily made cot, a shelf of books, a system of cubbies, with packages in some. There’s a rack for hanging the dry-cleaning deliveries. There are some plastic-covered collections of clothing on the metal rod, awaiting delivery.

I sit at the desk and start rifling through the drawers. What am I looking for? I’ll know it when I see it. Maybe the stolen letter to Dana? But the drawers are organized collections of pens and Post-it Notes, the pink message slips Abi might slide under the door for this or that.

“Rosie.” Sarah is staring at me, confused.

---