Page 84 of Nightwatching

“One of them bit you.”

It wasn’t a question. She balked, had forgotten her son’s teeth in her palm, such a tiny thing compared with all her subsequent pain.

“Oh, oh no, that was, that happened when I covered my son’s mouth when he woke up. The Corner going up the stairs was really loud, and that woke my son. He bit down.”

“The Corner?” The sergeant arched an eyebrow.

Stupid, so stupid, why’d you say that?

“Sorry. The kids, they called him that, so—”

“All right.” The sergeant lounged back in his chair again, but she tensed. Something about his casualness appeared feigned. “Did you have anything to drink that night? Alcohol, I mean?”

She recalled sitting on the kitchen stairs after midnight two days after her husband fell, drinking wine directly from the bottle and staring at the half-cleaned blood. The wine was the only thing she’d consumed since her husband’s death that she could fully taste; her senses had gone numb in loss. She’d felt just fine, disappointingly sober, even, until she stood up. The sway of drunkenness caught her, and she barely managed to clutch the banister as she fell. She slid down one stair, just one, tailbone landing hard. The wine bottle crashed down and came to rest not far from the bloodstain. She made it to the toilet in time to be sick. Was sick for hours, vomiting every time she thought of what had nearly happened. Since then, just the idea of alcohol made her taste her stomach.

“No, nothing to drink. I gave it up after my husband died.”

“Gave it up altogether?”

“Yes.”

“So, you’re sure you didn’t have any alcohol that night?”

She felt like there must be a trick here, this repeated question about alcohol, but couldn’t find it. She hadn’t had anything to drink.

Unless your mind’s protecting itself by forgetting something, like the psychiatrist said.

“I didn’t have anything to drink,” she said.

She felt the pain of that months-ago fall, and realized she’d gone too long without hitting the red button. Pain was the price for clarity, but that was starting to turn. The room was shrinking down to her injuries. Her heart beat in a long line down her forehead and around her eye socket.

“Ma’am?”

“Sorry. My head hurts. What were you asking?”

Why had she done this thing and not the other? Why did she go this way and not that one? Identifying marks? Why was this “easy-pleasy” phrase, that T-shirt, so key to recognizing this man, hadn’t she seen his face? Hadn’t that been enough? Was she sure she’d seen her phone in the man’s pocket? Describe him again.

She saw a small black object on the table next to the sergeant.

“What’s that?”

“That’s the recorder? You gave us permission to record this interview.”

She searched her memory, couldn’t recall anything to do with any recording.

“Oh. Right.”

“You remember that?”

“It’s just…my head,” she said. “It aches.”

“You all right? You’re looking pale.” A crawl of pink embarrassment spread across his cheeks. “Not…pale…obviously, with your, I mean. Skin? I just meant…you don’t look so good.”

“I’m not feeling so good,” she wheezed through aching teeth.

“Hm. Well. Let’s go back to when—”

The crack in her skull was widening. Her jaw strained, her eye was a taut and bloody drum pounding beneath the bandage.

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