The Broken Window

this often with her things. The girl always refused offers to let someone else carry her book bag or groceries. Sachs guessed that so much had been taken away from her, she held tight to whatever she could.
    “So. What’s up?”
    She could think of no way to ease gently into the subject. “I talked to your friend.”
    “Friend?” Pam asked.
    “Stuart.”
    “You what ?” Light fragmented by leaves of a ginkgo tree fell on her troubled face.
    “I had to.”
    “No, you didn’t.”
    “Pam . . . I was worried about you. I had a friend in the department—somebody who does security checks—look him up.”
    “No!”
    “I wanted to see if there were any skeletons in his closet.”
    “You didn’t have any right to do that!”
    “True. But I did anyway. And I just got an e-mail back.” Sachs felt her stomach muscles clench. Facing killers, driving 170 mph . . . those were nothing. She was shaken badly now.
    “So is he a fucking murderer?” Pam snapped. “A serial killer? A terrorist?”
    Sachs hesitated. She wanted to touch the girl’s arm. But didn’t. “No, honey. But . . . he’s married.”
    In the dappled light Sachs saw Pam blink.
    “He’s . . . married?”
    “I’m sorry. His wife’s a teacher too. A private school on Long Island. And he has two children.”
    “No! You’re wrong.” Sachs saw Pam’s free hand was clenched so tightly the muscles had to be cramping. Anger filled her eyes, but there wasn’t much surprise. Sachs wondered if Pam would be running through certain memories. Maybe Stuart had said he didn’t have a home phone, only a mobile. Or maybe he’d asked her to use a particular e-mail account, not his general one.
    And my house is such a mess. I’d be embarrassed for you to see it. I’m a teacher, you know. We’re absentminded. . . . I need to get a housekeeper. . . .
    Pam blurted, “It’s a mistake. You’ve got him mixed up with somebody else.”
    “I went to see him just now. I asked him and he told me.”
    “No, you didn’t! You’re making it up!” The girl’s eyes flared and a cold smile crossed her face, cutting deep into Sachs’s heart. “You’re doing just what my mother did! When she didn’t want me to do something, she lied to me! Just like you’re doing.”
    “Pam, I’d never—”
    “Everybody takes things away from me! You’re not going to! I love him and he loves me, and you’re not taking him away!” She wheeled and made for the house, the dog firmly under her arm.
    “Pam!” Sachs’s voice choked. “No, honey . . .”
    As the girl stepped inside she looked back once fast, hair swirling, posture stiff as iron, leaving Amelia Sachs grateful that the backlight prevented her from seeing Pam’s face; she couldn’t have stomached witnessing the hatred she knew was there.
    •   •   •
    The travesty at the cemetery still burns like fire.
    Miguel 5465 should have died. Should be pinned to a velvet board for the police to examine. They’d say case closed and all would be well.
    But he didn’t. That butterfly got away. I can’t try to fake a suicide again. They’ve learned something about me. They’ve collected some knowledge. . . .
    Hate Them hate Them hate Them hate Them . . .
    I’m so close to taking my razor and storming out and . . .
    Calm. Down. But it’s becoming harder and harder to do that, as the years go by.
    I’ve canceled certain transactions for this evening—I was going to celebrate the suicide—and now I head into my Closet. Being surrounded by my treasures helps. I wander through the fragrant rooms and hold several items close to me. Trophies from various transactions over the past year. Feeling the dried flesh and fingernails and hair against my cheek is such a comfort.
    But I’m exhausted. I sit down in front of the Harvey Prescott painting, gaze up at it. The family looking back. As with most portraits their eyes follow you wherever you are.
    Comforting. Eerie too.
    Maybe one of the reasons I love his work so much is that these people were created fresh. They have no memories to plague them, to make them edgy, to keep them up all night and to drive them out into the streets, collecting treasures, and trophies.
    Ah, memories:
    June, five years old. Father sits me down, tucks his unlit cigarette away and explains to me I’m not theirs. “We brought you into the family because we wanted you wanted you badly and we love you even if you aren’t our natural son you