Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood [25]
But when Zenia appeared at the back door, in the rain, this is what Charis thought. She thought, Zenia is lost. She can’t find the light. Maybe she doesn’t even know she’s dead. What would be more natural than for her to show up at Charis’s house, to ask for help? Help was what she had come for, at first.
Then of course it turned out that Zenia wasn’t Zenia at all, but only Augusta, home for the weekend and slightly forlorn, because – Charis suspected – some other plan of hers had fallen through, something involving a man. There are men in Augusta’s life, Charis divines this; though they are not produced, they are not presented to Charis. Most likely they are in the business course too, fledgling entrepreneurs who would take one look at Charis in her not yet fully organized house and run like crazy. Most likely Augusta heads them off. Maybe she tells them her mother is ill, or in Florida or something.
But Augusta is not completely lacquered yet; she does have moments of soft guilt. That time, she’d brought a loaf of bran bread with her as a peace offering, and some dried figs. Charis gave her an extra hug and made her some zucchini muffins, and a hot-water bottle for her bed, as she used to do when Augusta was little, because she was so thankful that Augusta was not Zenia after all.
Still, it’s almost as if Zenia really has been here. As if she came and then went away without getting what she wanted. As if she’ll be back.
When she materializes the next time, Charis will be expecting her. Zenia must have something she wants to say. Or no. Maybe it’s Charis who has something to say; maybe this is what’s holding Zenia to this earth. Because Zenia’s around, she’s around somewhere, Charis has known it ever since that funeral. She looked at the canister with Zenia’s ashes in it, and she knew. The ashes might be in there, but ashes were not a person. Zenia was not in that canister, or with the light either. Zenia was loose, loose in the air but tethered to the world of appearances, and it’s all the fault of Charis. It’s Charis who needs her to be here, it’s Charis who won’t cut her free.
Zenia will appear, her white face looming in the glass oblong, and Charis will open the door. Come in, she will say, because the dead can’t cross your threshold unless you invite them. Come in, she will say, risking her own body, because Zenia will be searching for a new flesh dress. Come in, she will say, for the third and crucial time, and Zenia will drift through the doorway, her eyes cavernous, her hair like cold smoke. She will stand in the kitchen and the light will darken, and Charis will be afraid.
But she won’t back down, she won’t back away this time. What did they do with Billy? she’ll ask her. Zenia is the only one who knows.
Charis goes back upstairs and gets dressed for work, trying not to look over her shoulder. Sometimes she thinks it’s not such a great idea for her to live alone. The rest of the time she likes it, though. She can do what she wants, she can be who she is, and if she talks out loud to herself there’s nobody to stare. Nobody to complain about the dustballs, except maybe Augusta, who gets out the broom and sweeps them up.
She steps on another thumbtack and this one hurts more, so she puts on her shoes. When she has all of her clothes on she goes in search of her reading glasses, because she’ll need them at work, when she’s making out invoices, and to read the menu at the Toxique.
She looks forward to that lunch. She wills herself to look forward to it, although there’s something tugging at her, some intuition … a sinking feeling. Not something violent, like an explosion or a fire. Something else. She often has these feelings,