What’s happening to me? Downstairs I can hear my wife Ann with our two-year-old Isabella, their sounds bubbling up from the kitchen. The scrape of spoon on bowl. The cooed urgings: Another bite? Zoom zoom! Izzy’s delighted yawp. But for some reason I can’t go down the stairs. Every time I try, lowering my right foot onto the top step, the paddded carpet giving way, I start to lose my balance and heave myself back up, almost knocking the wedding photo of my mom and dad off the wall.
I feel groggy like I’ve just woken up. I don’t know how long I’ve been up here on the second floor. It’s morning now. Outside I can see sunlight hitting the house peaks and setting them ablaze. Next door, yellow leaves litter the roof and hood of my neighbor’s black SUV, and I can hear squirrels scrabbling in our gutter. It must be fall, late October.
I sit on the bed to focus. Ann’s sweaters and socks are piled on a wooden chair in front of her closet. The radiator in the corner hisses. I flatten my palms on the quilt to anchor myself. The clock says 8:10. Am I still dreaming? I grip the thick fabric; it feels real. I close my eyes and take three deep breaths. A fragment of memory pops up. The ammonia tang of a doctor’s office. A thermometer lodged under my tongue. Am I in quarantine? Have I been in a half-conscious limbo of illness for a day or two?
“No no no no no!” Izzy yodels downstairs, upset about something. I can hear Ann shushing her, calming her down. Ann’s really good at distracting her, pulling out a book or puzzle; the two of them are inseparable. The birth was difficult, with three extra days in the hospital, and I think that stitched them together. Somehow Ann’s steadiness balances out Isabella’s frenetic energy. I admit to myself that at times I feel a little left out. Ann is always Izzy’s first choice when she trips on the sidewalk and gashes her knee, blood oozing out as she sobs.
I stand up and try to call out, but my throat is raw, my voice a hoarse whisper.
I go into the bathroom and face the antique mirror over the sink. I look pale. My brown hair is uncombed, a mess of curls flat on my forehead. I brush them back, and my skin feels warm to the touch. Maybe I have a slight fever. I gulp down some cold water and look for some aspirin in the medicine cabinet. No, it’s not there, and I don’t recognize the other stuff: amber pill bottles, tubes of skin lotion, rusty nail clippers. They’re not mine, and not Ann’s either, as far as I can remember. In a coffee cup on the vanity, my razor is missing, my blue toothbrush and Colgate. Instead there’s a big hairbrush sticking up, its wiry bristles like a hedgehog, that I’ve never seen before.
I hear our Honda start in the drive and run to the front of the house, to Isabella’s room. I step over the Legos and stuffed animals to look out the window. Ann is bent over, easing Izzy into her car seat in back. There are squeals of kids leaking from the corner playground. I start to knock on the glass, but a firetruck starts to wail in the next street, drowning me out. Ann gets in and backs the car out. I stand there watching them drive away. I picture myself as a tiny figure that’s barely visible in an architectural model of our house, unable to move or cry out.
With them gone, I wonder if the spell has been broken. I try again to go downstairs, but meet the same impenetrable force of resistance, as if an invisible wave is pushing back at me. I stumble, grab the railing, and barely keep myself from falling.
Our black cat Shadow darts up the stairs and scoots between my legs. I try to grab his tail but miss. I follow him down the hall, calling out: Shadow? Shadow? He must be tucked in the back of a closet or scrunched under an armchair. I can hear him mewling. Come on, Shadow, come on out.
I spot him in the tub, licking the faucet, and scoop him up. I got you, it’s ok, everything’s going to be ok. I head down the hallway, determined to go down the steps with Shadow in my arms and rejoin life downstairs. I hear the front door bang open, and a spear of light shoots up the stairway. The car hums in the driveway, and I can hear Ann shuffling through her desk drawers. She must have forgotten something, her cell phone? I feel in my pocket for mine, but it’s empty.
I’m getting closer to the stairs, only an arms-length away. I grasp Shadow tighter. I can feel his heart thumping against my chest. This sensation is so familiar, it’s like I’m ten again with the stray I picked up in the alley, bringing it home to show my mom, but she’s allergic, she’ll get swollen red bites all over her ankles; we can keep it but it will have to stay outdoors, we can feed it on the back porch where we keep the snow shovel and bags of salt—and now I’m teetering above the top step, hugging Shadow. His claws dig in, breaking the skin on my hand, and I gasp, take a deep breath. The stairs look so steep and so far away, I’m afraid I’ll never reach the bottom.
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