Watch Out Now, Take Care, Beware
When she had first come out to the house by the lake, she had planned on staying only for a night or two—and then, when that period had passed, a week or two, and then a month. After two months she understood, with a mix of resignation and triumph, that she would never leave the house. Because Antonio was observant, he sensed these feelings in her. Because he was loving, he let her experience her triumph. And because he was cruel, he made it clear that she was not the source of her own power. He kept her in the house, not exactly trapped but not free either, supplying a steady stream of orders and forcing her to leave the house only one day a year, on his birthday. She came to master the place. She felt calm there because she knew the house as if it were her own body. There were windows that were poorly sealed and let in too much outside air. There was a first-floor doorframe that creaked when she leaned against it. There was a doorknob upstairs that was loose.
The first time Antonio’s birthday came around, he woke her up early in the morning. “This is the day,” he said. “It is time to go.” She was reluctant to wake up. She pulled him down into the bed with her. But when they finally emerged from the bed, it was time to do what had to be done. That year, leaving was mostly notional. She opened the front door and walked out into the middle of the meadow, with Antonio watching from one of the highest windows of the house. The next year, she went up the road on foot, though when she reached the first big bend she turned and ran home. The third year, she sat in the car, running the engine and listening to the radio. Each time, she had ended the day by asking him if he had enjoyed the birthday, and each time he had simply nodded, which was more powerful than speaking could ever be. This year, things were different. He had woken her up early, as usual. He had stood by the bed, as usual. But this time he told her to stand up next to him, and to close her eyes, and then he told her to take the car into town. “Open your eyes now,” he said, and she did. When he held out the car keys to her, she felt her legs go watery beneath her. She walked downstairs without him and noticed the signs that calmed her: the morning light, the yowling cat. A bird landed by the front door.
In the car, her nervousness returned. The small familiar things that calmed her in the house were not available to her now. She drove to town, her heart tumbling inside her. She had, in the house, in the morning, in the moment after Antonio had given her the keys, pulled him down into the bed to forestall the moment of departure. Over him in bed, watching his face pass rapidly through youth and old age, an idea came to her. She would celebrate his birthday. The weather was not menacing and she reached town quickly in the car. The first store on the small main street sold tools. The second sold books. The third sold weapons. She parked in front of the fourth, a bakery, and went inside. The woman behind the counter took her order without writing anything down. “I’ll have it ready in no time,” she said. “You can sit and wait.” Emma waited. It was not no time. She began to worry that Antonio was missing her. What would he do without her? Was he walking up and down the stairs, screaming her name? Was he even thinking of her? Finally, the woman called her back to the counter. “Here,” she said. The box went onto the front seat of the car. The fifth store sold maps, and she found a small, ancient map of the land just outside of town, the land on which Antonio’s house was located. She bought the map and drove straight back to Antonio. There was no mistaking which box it was this time, and as a result no fear of crushing it.
She went into the house quickly, brushing past the bird that was still perched on the rail just outside the front door and had possibly been there all day. She placed the cake on the table. She called Antonio’s name but he did not answer and she assumed that he was upstairs, sleeping, dreaming. There was a note next to it that told her to do several other things, and she went into the yard to start in on them. She pulled up weeds, working hard, not worrying about the small cuts on her hands. She hammered a nail into a board and then the board into the wall. She tied a rope around a tree. Most of the afternoon went into the list of tasks that she had been told to do. When she returned to the house, there was still no sign of Antonio downstairs, but there was a piece missing from the cake. She called his name again. There was no answer again. She went to the front door and watched the afternoon light drain out of the sky. She called Antonio’s name a third time. Again, no answer. A cat yowled, this time so faintly that she believed it was on the other side of the meadow.
The cake sat on the table, the missing piece looming. She could not touch it. She walked out to the car, touched the hood, and walked back to the house. She sat down on the sofa. The stairs behind her were insurmountable. Was Antonio upstairs? She did not know and did not know how to find out. She called his name. She stood next to the cake. She picked up the car key and then remembered that she had already touched the hood. The light in the room was gone now, and the day with it. There were lamps but she could no more turn them on than she could walk upstairs. She called Antonio’s name, her voice breaking a bit now so that she sounded more like an animal than like anything else. She went to the front door to look for the bird, only to find another bird in its place. She could not be calm because everything was making her afraid. •