Chapter 5 - What Last Night Allows
I sat on the edge of my bed with the envelope out of sight and tried to walk myself backward through last night, hour by hour, the way I used to double-check a door I'd locked.
I had gone to sleep with my hair intact. I was sure of that because I had brushed it out in that bathroom. The marble had been cool under my feet. The sconces over the gold mirrors were on low. I remembered the weight of it falling forward over my shoulders when I leaned toward the glass to take my earrings out, gray at the temples, still thick in back. I had run my fingers through it once and thought I should have it trimmed before the photographs.
The house had been quiet after ten. That was not unusual. Michael had the upstairs guest room, and Sabrina had taken the room down the hall because she said she wanted to follow tradition and not see him before the wedding. I had heard their low voices in the hallway once, then a door closing. After that, only the air conditioning and the faint tick of the big clock in the living room.
I had taken nothing to help me sleep. I never did. I left the bedroom door unlocked because this was my house. I left the bathroom light off and the nightstand lamp on low. I remembered pulling the covers up and listening for a while to nothing at all.
I stood and went back into the bathroom. My feet made almost no sound on the marble. In the daylight from the windows, the room looked undisturbed. The robe tie had left a crease in the silk. The counter was wiped clean. The towels were folded. Whoever had come in during the night had been careful.
I told myself to look the way someone else would look, not the way I felt. I checked the shower drain first. It was clear. I checked the sink. Only a faint film of something near the basin, too thin to name. Then I bent down and pulled the small trash can out from under the vanity.
There were cotton pads on top, and a tissue. Underneath, balled tight, was a clump of my hair mixed with a clear, sticky residue from a disposable razor wrapper. The plastic strip had been torn open and then folded back down, as if someone had tried to make it look like ordinary trash. I stared at it long enough to hear my own breathing change.
I thought of the staff. Marta came in the mornings. The caterers would not arrive until noon. No one else had a key except Michael, and Sabrina had been given one for the weekend so she could come and go with the wedding boxes. Only three people had slept under that roof.
I did not call out. I did not take the trash can to Michael. I reached in and worked the wrapper free with two fingers, careful not to tear it further, and slipped it into the pocket of my robe along with a twist of the hair. The cotton pads I smoothed back into place.
In the bedroom, I stood in front of the dark portrait and looked at my own reflection ghosted in the glass. Bald. Red along the crown. My scalp ached when the air hit it. I pressed my palm lightly to the back of my head and felt the roughness there, and for a moment I had to sit down again.
What last night allowed was narrow. Whoever did it knew I slept hard, knew the bathroom layout, knew they would have time. They knew I would wake early and go straight to that mirror. They wanted me to find it alone, before hair and makeup, before Michael, before anyone could soften it.
May you like
I took the wrapper from my pocket and turned it over once more. No brand I didn't recognize. Just the kind anyone could buy at any drugstore on any highway in America. That was the point, I realized. Nothing to trace.
I folded it small and tucked it behind the envelope where I had hidden it. Not proof. Not yet. Just something that kept me from telling myself I had imagined it, or that it could have been anyone.
