That evening, Steve calls again.
“I’m sorry, Lis. I shouldn’t have yelled at you last night.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I know this is hard for you. It’s just--well. Anyway. I’m sorry.”
Lisa has to swallow before she can reply. “Thanks.”
“Look, I’ve been thinking. It’s been forever since I visited. How about I come out for a few days next week? Just me?”
The resistance is instant, instinctive. “Oh, Steve. That’s so sweet, but you shouldn’t waste your vacation time on me.”
“It’s my time, Lis.”
“I’ve got an awful lot of work. I don’t know how free I’ll be.”
“I’m sure we can work something out.”
His voice has acquired an edge. Lisa yields to the inevitable. “All right.” Then, ashamed of how grudging she sounds: “That’ll be great, Steve. You’re right, it’s been too long.”
They discuss times and schedules, make a brief pretense at conversation--Irene is having a showing at a prestigious gallery, Susannah just auditioned for the part of Belle in her middle school’s production of Beauty and the Beast--and hang up. Lisa sets her cell phone on the sill of the living room window, where she has wandered while talking, then stands for a moment, looking down at night-flooded Manhattan. She knows why her brother is coming, and dreads this change of tactics. It’s not just the prospect of the arguments, the persuasions, the weight of his conviction marshalled against her. She wouldn’t put it past him to take the choice into his own hands--to get rid of the videos himself. Should she hide them, in her storage cubby in the basement, maybe, and pretend to have thrown them away? Something in her flinches from the thought. She and Steve haven’t always had an easy relationship, but they have at least always been honest with each other. It’s why she didn’t lie when he called last night.
She sighs and turns away. In the kitchen, dinner dishes wait to be cleared up. The aspirin she took an hour ago has only blunted the aching in her legs, and with every reflection, every glint or spark at the corner of her eye, her stomach muscles clench for fear that it will become the white light that overwhelmed her in the park. Over the past few hours, that fear has become uppermost in her mind, all but displacing her dread of the crazy man who knows her home address. The blue popping flashes, the prismatic flickering--she’s used to those, she can deal with them. But full-on hallucination is something new. She is terrified of what it may portend.
In the hall, her purse still sits on the table by the front door. She hasn’t allowed herself to think about the box; each time it has tried to edge into her mind, she has pushed it away. But now, suddenly, an odd emotion grips her, a strange angry impulse, and instead of making her way to the kitchen she rummages the box out of her purse and returns to the living room, switching on the halogen lamp by the sofa so she can examine it more closely. It’s a lovely object, she can’t deny it. Iridescence sheens its surface. The metal of its legs and latch gleam for all the world like gold, though of course that can’t be. Carefully she turns it over, examining the sides and bottom. No label, no stamp, no markings at all to indicate origin or provenance. Why did she bring it home? Why didn’t she discard it on the way? Why is it so heavy? She shakes it, gently. Nothing moves or rattles. Maybe there’s no space under the lid. Maybe it’s solid all the way through.
All the time, she keeps it clamped beween her thumb and forefinger, as one does with something one doesn’t want to fall open by accident. Silly, given the nature of the latch--a hasp and loop, filigreed and scrolled, secured with a little dagger-shaped pin that is itself secured to the hasp by a tiny chain, so when the box is opened the pin won’t be lost. Yet she is possessed by the powerful and completely irrational feeling that it might unlock itself--simply fly open of its own accord. It feels safer to hold it closed.
Anger stirs again. It’s just a box. Why is she being such an idiot? She turns off the light, sets the box firmly down on the coffee table, and goes to the kitchen to clear up her dinner dishes. When that’s done she scrubs the sink, the counters, the stovetop; still not satisfied, she changes the dishtowels and the sponge, and washes the floor as well. She pushes the mop hard, really getting her back into it, ignoring the protest of her knees and hips. If I can do this, she thinks, I’m fine. She repeats it like a mantra, keeping rhythm with her breathing. I’m fine. I’m fine.
At last there’s no more she can clean. She doesn’t feel like working or emailing, so she shuts off her computer. She’ll take some more aspirin and watch a DVD in bed.
As she passes by the darkened living room, something catches at the edge of her vision, a smear of light. Involuntarily she turns her head. It’s not an eye-phantom this time. It’s the box. From the coffee table, in a room where no lamps burn, the box shines with a hot white light. As if, inside it, there is something unbearably bright.
