Around one a.m., after the third time I’ve woken from restless dreams, I stare at the ceiling and think “I am done with true crime shows.” Normally, I know that I’ve hit my quota of true crime when I start mentally narrating my day in the True Crime Voice.
That morning started like any other, I’ll think as I make my coffee. She left home at 8:32a.m., already late for work…she would never make it. I’ll catalog every dumb detail of my day and wonder if rearranging my desk or doing the dishes or going for a walk will be the last significant moment of my life.
Then I know it’s time to take a break.
The episode I saw this afternoon, the one I can’t shake, was about a newly divorced woman who thought she had her life in order when her ex-husband hired a hit man who shot her while she was sleeping in her bed. This is not a new story. There must be a dozen stories like this in any true crime docuseries on ID—Investigation Discovery.
But my final divorce hearing was today. As if I weren’t already a bundle of mixed emotions: relief, anxiety, exhilaration, sorrow. Now I have to add unreasoning terror to the list. I keep seeing the blurred out picture of that woman’s body in the crime scene video.
My ceiling holds no comfort for me. Neither does my otherwise empty bed. I stretch out my arm and find only space and cool, unfilled sheets. I tangle my fingers in the sheets, mussing them up a bit so it can at least feel like someone who loved me was there once upon a time. I need to go back to sleep. Tonight is just another night. I’ve slept alone for ten months now. There is no reason for tonight to feel any different.
I lay awake anyway, listening for any strange sounds. My heater clicks on and warm air blows through my curtains. They move like ghosts. Somewhere in the distance of my suburban neighborhood, a dog barks to be let in. My walls creak and settle. The ice maker in the kitchen releases a cascade of blocks into a plastic bin. After a while, I consider turning on some white noise on my phone to block out all of the sounds, but then I remember a true crime episode where a woman was sleeping with her headphones and didn’t realize she was being attacked until it was too late.
The tap-scratch comes after an hour of me listening to my house breathe.
I’m almost back to sleep, actually. My eyes were drifting shut.
Tap tap scratch.
Like something hard tapping against my window. Not a branch, I’ve had those removed. And, as I listen, it doesn’t sound like it’s on my window. Slowly, very slowly, I sit up. My bed gives a small sigh beneath me and I freeze. There was another episode where a man waited beneath a woman’s bed. Just waiting and waiting patiently.
Scratch. Tap. Scratch.
The sound is coming from outside my window. It has a random pattern to it, but to my ear it sounds deliberately made, not like the wind blowing something into the side of my house. I have to check.
But don’t be stupid about it, I tell myself. I grab my phone and have 911 dialed before I stand and move toward the curtains fluttering in the heating draft. My thumb hovers over the call icon. Gently, oh so gently, I slide my curtain back. I see myself and the illuminated phone screen in the dark reflection of window glass. Beyond, I see my patio, my swing sitting still, chairs in a circle around my table.
Nothing else.
I close the curtains again. The heater turns off, apparently it’s hit the ideal temperature in here, but I am sweating and cold at the same time. In the darkness, I see the shape of my bed and the mounds and twists of the comforter. I don’t think I can sleep there tonight. I glance at the clock on my phone. 3:10a.m. I’ve been up for a couple hours almost.
I move to the couch in the living room. There are at least a couple exits there and it’s comfortable enough. If some home invader or hit man or serial killer comes looking for me, he won’t find me in the usual spot. I leave 911 dialed and eventually fall into a restless sleep, telling myself I’ll only watch Bridgerton for the next couple weeks.
Morning comes fast. My back is sore as I throw some coffee grounds into the percolator. The light of day relaxes me and I decide that I’m going to live life more like the home buyers on HGTV and take my drink outside. That’s what they always say they’re going to do when they have a patio or balcony or something, right? “I can see myself having coffee in the morning.”
I will live life more like HGTV than ID. That’s my new resolution. Today is a new day. My divorce is final. I have coffee outside.
I sit at my patio table and cast a glance at the window to my bedroom. And, there, next to the window, at chest height, is a drawing in what looks like sidewalk chalk.
The graffiti isn’t large, maybe a square foot. It will wash away with the next rain or snow storm. It’s a picture of a bedroom, my bedroom. There is my dresser, my bookshelf, my nightstand, all laid out exactly like they are in real life. There is my bed, and I am laying in the center with a pink X through my stomach.
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