Bird box

You look like a princess. I look like the princess’s sister, she’d say.

Living off canned goods and well water, she can see some of her ribs, despite the bulge of her belly. Her arms are twig-thin. The features of her face are sharp and hard. Her eyes, deeper set in her skull, are striking, even to herself, in the mirror.

The housemates are gathered in the living room downstairs. Earlier today, the last names in the phone book were called. There are no more. Felix said they made close to five thousand calls. They left seventeen messages. That’s it. But Tom is encouraged.

Now, as Malorie examines her body in the mirror, she hears one of the dogs growl downstairs.

It sounds like Victor. Stepping into the hall, she listens.

“What is it, Victor?” she hears Jules say.

“He doesn’t like it,” Cheryl says.

“Doesn’t like what?”

“Doesn’t like the cellar door.”

The cellar. It’s no secret Don wants nothing to do with the rest of the house. When Tom instigated his plan for calling the phone book, assigning each housemate a group of letters, Don declined, citing his “lack of faith” in the process as a whole. In the seven weeks since they shut the front door on Gary, Don hasn’t joined the others for meals. He hardly speaks at all.

Malorie hears a kitchen chair slide on the floor.

“You okay, Victor?” Jules says.

Malorie hears the cellar door open, then Jules calls out.

“Don? You down there?”

“Don?” Cheryl echoes.

There is a muffled response. The door closes again.

Curious and anxious, Malorie pulls her shirt over her belly and heads downstairs.

When she enters the kitchen, she sees Jules is kneeling, consoling Victor, who now whines and paces. Malorie looks in the living room. There she sees Tom is looking at the blanketed windows.

He’s listening for the birds, she thinks. Victor is scaring him.

As if sensing she is watching him, Tom turns toward Malorie. Victor is whining behind her.

“Jules,” Tom says, entering the kitchen, “what do you think it is? What’s scaring him?”

“I don’t know. Obviously something’s got him rattled. He was scratching at the cellar door earlier. Don is down there. But it’s like pulling teeth to get him to talk. Even worse to get him upstairs.”

“All right,” Tom says. “Let’s go down there then.”

When Jules looks up at Tom, Malorie sees fear on his face.

What has Gary done to them?

He’s introduced distrust, Malorie thinks. Jules is afraid of confronting Don at all.

“Come on,” Tom says. “It’s time we talk to him.”

Jules stands up and puts his hand on the cellar doorknob. Victor begins growling again.

“You stay here, boy,” Jules says.

“No,” Tom says. “Let’s bring him with us.”

Jules pauses, and then opens the cellar door.

“Don?” Tom calls.

There is no answer.

Tom goes first. Then Jules and Victor. Malorie follows.

Despite the light being on, it feels dark down here. At first, Malorie thinks they are alone. She expected to see Don sitting on the stool. Reading. Thinking. Writing. She almost says that nobody is down here, then she shrieks.

Don is standing by the thin tapestry, leaning against the washing machine in the shadows.

“What’s gotten into the dog?” he asks quietly.

Tom speaks carefully when he responds.

“We don’t know, Don. It’s like he doesn’t like something down here. Is everything okay?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ve been down here more than we have lately,” Tom says. “I just want to know if everything is okay.”

When Don steps forward, into the light, Malorie quietly gasps. He does not look good. Pale. Thin. His dark hair is dirty and thinning. The features of his face are claylike in texture. The dark circles beneath his eyes make it look like he’s taken in some of the darkness he’s been staring into for weeks.

“We called the whole phone book,” Tom says, attempting, Malorie thinks, something bright in this damp, dark cellar.

“Any luck?”

“None yet. But who knows?”

“Yes. Who knows.”

Then they are silent. Malorie understands that the divide she sensed growing between them is complete now. They are checking on Don. Checking up on Don. As if he lives somewhere else now. Repair feels impossible.

“Do you want to come upstairs?” Tom asks gently.

Malorie experiences a wave of light-headedness. She brings a hand to her belly.

The baby. She shouldn’t have taken the cellar stairs. But she’s as concerned about Don as anybody.

“What for?” Don finally answers.

“I don’t know what for,” Tom says. “It might do you some good to be around the rest of us for a night.”

Don is nodding slowly. He licks his lips. He looks once around the cellar. To the shelves, the boxes, and the stool Malorie sat on, seven weeks ago, when she read the notebook in Gary’s briefcase.

“All right,” Don whispers. “Okay.”

Tom puts a hand on Don’s shoulder. Don begins crying. He brings a hand to his eyes to hide it.

“I’m sorry, man,” he says. “I’m so confused, Tom.”