600 Hours of Edward

the phone.”
    As if out of nowhere, three police cars converge on Donna Middleton’s house. The officers emerge from the cars, guns drawn. I can hear them yelling at Mike.
    “Hands off her. Stand up. Hands behind your head.”
    After Mike lets go and climbs to his feet, two of the police officers take him hard to the ground and cuff him, while the other attends to Donna Middleton. An ambulance rolls up. My neighborhoodis lit up with red-and-blue strobes. I can see my neighbors standing on their front porches, talking and gawking.
    After Mike is wrestled into a police car and taken away, one of the officers who tackled him crosses the street and walks up to my house. I meet him at the door. I have seen this police officer before.
    “Is she OK?” I ask.
    “She’s shaken. She’ll have some bruises. But she’ll be OK.”
    “She has a restraining order against that man, doesn’t she?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why was he here, then?”
    “Well, it’s a court order. It’s not a jail cell. He’ll be in one of those soon enough.”
    “It’s terrible.”
    “Yes, it is. It could have been a lot worse, Mr. Stanton. Thanks for calling it in.”
    “You’re not going to call my father, are you?”
    The officer chuckles. “No. You did the right thing.”
    Mike:
    You are scum. You are subhuman. You are a horrible, horrible man.
    You have no right to go where you are not wanted, to defy a legal restraining order against you. You have no right to be at Donna Middleton’s house. You have no right to yell at her, to hit her, to choke her.
    I can only hope that the full weight of the law puts you somewhere you can’t hurt her again.
    Edward Stanton
    I put the letter in a new green office folder, labeled “Mike,” and file it away. I want to throw up.
    – • –
    As appointed, I go to bed at midnight. I can’t fall asleep, and I think I have to prepare myself for an unusual waking time in the morning, if I go to sleep at all. My data will be complete, but it will be erratic.
    At 1:47 a.m.—I know because I am not asleep and I check the clock—I hear a rap on the front door. I crawl out of bed and go to the door, where I look through the peephole.
    It’s Donna Middleton through the fish-eye lens. She has a purplish welt under her right eye. Her face is streaked and stained with makeup. She has been crying.
    I open the door.
    “Hello, Mr. Stanton.”
    “Hello, Ms. Middleton. Are you OK?”
    “Physically, I’ll be fine in a few days, they say. But I’m not OK.”
    “I understand.”
    She looks down. “I want to thank you for calling the cops.”
    “Yes.”
    “And I want to apologize to you for my reaction this morning—God, this morning. It seems like a long time ago.” She is weeping.
    “Yes.”
    “I’m having a hard time figuring you out, Mr. Stanton.”
    “Edward.”
    “Edward,” she repeats.
    “I know.” I am not sure what to say to her.
    “Are you a friend to us, Edward?”
    “Yes.”
    “OK, then. Thank you again. I was…” She is crying again. “I was sure I was going to die.”
    “That was not going to happen.”
    She tries to smile but just cries some more. She rubs her face and sniffles. “OK, then. It’s late. I probably woke you up. Good night, Edward.”
    “Good night.”
    I watch as she turns around and cuts diagonally across the street, from my front yard to hers. She walks up the steps of her porch, opens the front door, and disappears inside.
    It’s 2:00 a.m. I always go to sleep at midnight sharp, but today has been extraordinary, and here I am, awake. I’ve never seen my neighborhood at this time. It’s quiet and beautiful. I can’t hear anything except the beating of my heart.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19
    I am not surprised to see the man in front of me. It is Mike. Though he is at least seven inches shorter than me, no more than five foot nine, he weighs at least as much as I do, and unlike me, Mike is all muscle. His angular face seethes. He is holding a baseball bat, and he waggles it menacingly. That bat, I am sure, is intended for me.
    I am surprised that Mike is not in jail. The cops in this town are terrible.
    I am not surprised that he is advancing on me.
    I am surprised that I am not running—indeed, that I am standing still.
    I am not surprised that Mike has pulled the bat back for a mighty swing and that it is aimed directly at my head…
    – • –
    I am surprised that I’m awake. I am even more surprised that it’s 4:12 a.m.
    It seems that there is little I