He disappears for an hour. When he comes back his arms are stacked with things I can’t make out in the dark. I sit up straighter in bed and my mind hums with excitement. He works in front of the fire so that he won’t have to use the flashlight. I watch him unload what he’s brought up with him: two buckets, one smaller than the other, a metal skillet and a metal pot, duct tape, rubber bands, a pencil and two sticks. The sticks look smooth—like real drumsticks. I wonder if he’s been carving them secretly while he disappears downstairs every day. I wouldn’t blame him. I’ve been wanting to carve my skin for days.
He is making things. I can’t tell what they are, but I hear the rip of the duct tape every few minutes. He swears a couple times. It’s a soundtrack: rriiiip … swear … bang … rriiiip … swear … bang.
Finally, after what seems like hours, he stands up to examine his work.
“Help me up,” I beg him. “Just this once so I can see.”
He puts another log on the fire, and reluctantly comes over to my bed. I mouth, please, please, please, please. He picks me up before I can protest the help and carries me to what he made.
I stare in wonder at his creation, my leg jutting in front of me awkwardly. He’s taped the larger bucket to a makeshift stand he’s made out of some logs. The smaller bucket sits upside down next to it. On the opposite side are the two pots—both faced down.
“What’s that?” I ask, pointing to a mess of a thing on the floor.
“That’s my pedal. I wrapped rubber around a pencil. I cut out the sole of one of my shoes for the actual pedal.”
“Where did you get the rubber?”
“From the fridge.”
I nod. Genius.
“That’s my snare.” He points to the smaller bucket. “And bass…” The larger one, turned on its side.
“Can you stand me against the wall? I promise I won’t put weight on my cast.”
He props me against the wall near to where his drum set sits. I lean back, thrilled to be out of bed and on my … foot.
Isaac sits on the edge of the window seat. He leans down to test his pedal, then he plays.
I close my eyes and listen to his heart. This is the first time—the very first time—that I am meeting this side of Isaac. After all these years. Without his permission I turn on the flashlight and aim it at him like it’s a spotlight. He gives me a warning look, but I just smile and keep it on him. This moment deserves a little something special.
It’s four days ‘til Christmas. Give or take a day or two. I do my best to keep track, but I’ve lost days along the way. They dropped out from under me and messed up my mental calendar. You’re the one who went crazy and pissed herself like some dink in a mental institution. Isaac says I was like that for a week. Which still makes it Christmas.
Christmas in the dark.
Christmas in the attic room.
Christmas drinking melted snow and eating pinto beans out of a can.
Christmas was when we met. Christmas was when the bad thing happened. The zookeeper will do something on Christmas. I know it. And that’s when it hits me. It was sitting there in my subconscious the whole time.
I moan out loud. Isaac is downstairs so he doesn’t hear me. And then I can’t quite catch my breath.
“Isaac,” I wheeze. “Isaac!”
I hate this feeling. And I hate how it hits me out of nowhere so that I can never be prepared. I don’t know what’s more overwhelming at this moment, the fact that I can’t breathe, or the realization that was powerful enough to steal my breath away. Either way, I have to get to a nebulizer. Isaac found them down the table. He brought one up. Where did he put it? I look helplessly around the room. The top of the wardrobe. I get out of bed. It’s a struggle. When I’m halfway there he walks in carrying our wood ration for the day. He drops his armload when he sees my face. He darts to the wardrobe and grabs the nebulizer. Then he’s pushing it between my lips. I feel a cold rush; the vapor hits my lungs and I can breathe again.
Isaac looks pissed.
“What happened?”
“I had an asthma attack, idiot.”
“Senna,” he says, swinging me into his arms and carrying me back to the bed. “Ninety percent of the time your asthma attacks are stress induced. Now. What happened?”
“I didn’t know I needed anything extra,” I snap. “Other than being imprisoned in a house made of ice with my…”
I lose my words.
“Doctor,” he finishes.
I twist my body so that I’m facing away from him.
I need to think. I need to form a structure for this theory. The Rubik’s cube twists. Isaac gives me space.
I’m locked in a house with my doctor. He’s right.
I’m locked in a house with my doctor.
I’m locked in a house with my doctor.
With my doctor.
Doctor…
Christmas comes. Isaac is very quiet. But I was wrong; we don’t eat beans. He cooks us a feast over our little makeshift stove in the attic: canned corn, spam, green beans and, to top it all off, a can of pumpkin pie filling. For breakfast.
For a moment, we are happy. Then Isaac looks at me and says, “When I first opened my eyes and saw you standing over me, I felt like I took my first breath in three years.”
I grind my teeth.
Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!
“We only knew each other for three months before this,” I say. “You don’t know me.” But, even as I say it, I know it’s not true. “You were just my doctor…”
He’s wearing the expression of someone being slapped over and over again. I slap him once more to put an end to this.
“You took things too far.”
He walks out before I can say any more.
I bury my face. “Fuck you, Isaac,” I say into my pillow.
At noon the lights turn on.
Isaac’s head appears through the trapdoor a minute later. I wonder where he’s been. My bet is on the carousel room. He takes one look at my face and says, “You knew.”
I knew.
“I suspected.”
He looks incredulous. “That the power would come back?”
“That something would happen,” I correct him.
I knew that the power would come back.
He disappears again, and I hear his steps pounding down the stairs. Clomp, clomp, clomp. I count them until he reaches the bottom. Then I hear the front door hit the wall as he swings it wide. I flinch at all the cold air he’s letting in, then remember that the power is back. HEAT! LIGHT! A WORKING TOILET!