False Memory

Dusty said, and then he hurried out of the room, in search of Tom Wong.

19
    When Martie drove into the garage, she was disappointed to see that Dusty’s van wasn’t there. Because his work would have been rained out, she had hoped to find him at home.
    In the kitchen, a ceramic-tomato magnet held a brief note to the refrigerator door: Oh, Beautiful One. I’ll be home by 5:00. We’ll go out for dinner Love you even more than I love tacos. Dusty.
    She used the half bath—and not until she was washing her hands did she realize the mirror was missing from the door of the medicine cabinet. All that remained was a tiny splinter of silvered glass wedged in the lower right-hand corner of the metal frame.
    Evidently, Dusty had accidentally broken it. Except for the one small sliver stuck in the frame, he’d done a thorough job of cleaning up the debris.
    If broken mirrors meant bad luck, this was the worst of all possible days to shatter one.
    Although she had no lunch left to lose, she still felt queasy. She filled a glass with ice and ginger ale. Something cold and sweet usually settled her stomach.
    Wherever he had gone, Dusty must have taken Valet with him. In reality, their house was small and cozy, but at the moment it seemed big and cold—and lonely.
    Martie sat at the breakfast table by the rainwashed window to sip the ginger ale, trying to decide if she preferred to go out this evening or stay home. Over dinner—assuming she could eat—she intended to share the unsettling events of the day with Dusty, and she worried about being overheard by a waitress or by other diners. Besides, she didn’t want to be out in public if she suffered another episode.
    On the other hand, if they stayed home, she didn’t trust herself to cook dinner.
    She raised her eyes from the ginger ale to the rack of knives on the wall near the sink.
    The ice cubes rattled against the drinking glass clutched in her right hand.
    The shiny stainless-steel blades of the cutlery appeared to be radiant, as though they were not merely reflecting light but also generating it.
    Letting go of the glass, blotting her hand on her jeans, Martie looked away from the knife rack. But at once her eyes were drawn to it again.
    She knew that she was not capable of doing violence to others, except to protect herself, those she loved, and the innocent. She doubted that she was capable of harming herself, either.
    Nevertheless, the sight of the knives so agitated her that she couldn’t remain seated. She rose, stood in indecision, went into the dining room and then into the living room, moving about restlessly, with no purpose except to put some distance between herself and the knife rack.
    After rearranging bibelots that didn’t need to be rearranged, adjusting a lampshade that was not crooked, and smoothing pillows that were not rumpled, Martie went into the foyer and opened the front door. She stepped across the threshold, onto the porch.
    Her heart knocked so hard she shook from its blows. Each pulse pushed such a tide through her arteries that her vision throbbed with the heavy surge of blood.
    She went to the head of the porch steps. Her legs were weak and shaky. She put one hand against a porch post.
    To get farther from the knife rack, she’d have to walk out into the storm, which had diminished from a downpour to a heavy drizzle. Wherever she went, however, in any corner of the world, in good and bad weather, in sunshine and in darkness, she would encounter pointed things, sharp things, jagged things, instruments and utensils and tools that could be used for wicked purposes.
    She had to steady her nerves, slow her racing mind, push out these strange thoughts. Calm down.
    God help me.
    She tried taking slow, deep breaths. Instead, her breathing became more rapid, ragged.
    When she closed her eyes, seeking inner peace, she found only turmoil, a vertiginous darkness.
    She wasn’t going to be able to regain control of herself until she found the courage to return to the kitchen and confront the thing that had triggered this anxiety attack. The knives. She had to deal with the knives, and quickly, before this steadily growing anxiety swelled into outright panic.
    The knives.
    Reluctantly, she turned away from the porch steps. She went to the open front door.
    Beyond the threshold, the foyer was a forbidding space. This was her much-loved little home, a place where she’d been happier than ever before in her life, yet now it was almost as unfamiliar to her as a