Monday Mourning

After cranking up the heat, I checked the lock on every door and window, set the alarm, and tested the phone. Then I headed toward my room.

I hadn’t noticed earlier. As I crossed the threshold, it drew my attention like some malignant phantom.

My legs gridlocked in shock at the macabre outrage above my bed.

11

“NO!”

Rushing forward, I jumped onto the bed, yanked a long, jagged shard from the painting above the headboard, and hurled it to the far side of the room.

Glass shattered. Fragments bounced from the wall and dropped onto others swept to the baseboard during our hasty cleanup.

“You low-life son of a bitch!”

My heart hammered. Tears burned the backs of my lids.

Stripping off my clothes, I flung them one by one after the shard. Then I threw myself under the covers, naked and trembling.

As an entering freshman at UVA, Katy chose a studio arts major. Her interest was short-lived, but during that brief blossoming, my daughter was as passionate about les beaux arts as any Montmartre aspirant. In one semester she produced four prints, fourteen drawings, and six oils, her style a lyrical blend of fauvist gaudiness and Barbizon realism.

On my fortieth, my only-born presented me with a Katy Petersons oil original, a raucous Matisse-meets-Rousseau interpretation of a Charlottesville hillside. I treasure that canvas. It is one of the few possessions I have transported from Carolina to Quebec to make a home out of my condo. Katy’s landscape is my last sight as I pull back the covers each night, and regularly catches my eye whenever I move through the room.

Why couldn’t you just take whatever it was you wanted? Why ruin Katy’s painting? Why ruin my daughter’s beautiful goddamned painting?

I squeezed my eyelids, too angry to cry, too angry not to. My fingers bunched and rebunched the blanket.

Minutes clicked by.

One.

Two.

Tears trickled to my temples.

Three.

Four.

Eventually, my breathing steadied and my death grip on the blanket relaxed.

I opened my eyes to blackness, and the soft orange glow of the clock radio. I stared at the digits, willing back rational thought.

Eventually, the anger abated. I began picking apart the mosaic of the last three hours.

What had gone on here? Had Anne and I merely interrupted a burglary in progress, or had we climbed into something more sinister? B and E didn’t figure.

Again, my fingers grip-locked. A stranger had violated my personal space.

Who? A very selective thief looking for particular items of value? A junkie looking for anything that could be fenced to fund a buy? Thrill-seeking kids?

Why? Most important, why the gratuitous violence?

I remembered Ryan’s words.

What was stolen?

Anne’s laptop and camera.

What was wrong there?

The jewelry case had been in full view. It contained items of value and was portable. Why not take that? The TV? The DVD player? Less portable. My laptop? In the excitement of Anne’s arrival, I’d left it in the trunk of my car.

Had the intruder been spooked before scoring the good stuff? Not likely. He had taken the time to break things. Assuming it was a he. Gratuitous damage is more characteristic of the male of the species.

The main door was open when we arrived. The courtyard doors were locked from the inside. Escape through the French doors would have necessitated scaling the backyard fence.

So? That’s how he’d come in. Had the front door been opened simply for the effect when I returned? Had Bird been thrown out or had he bolted through the French door when things were being smashed?

I rolled over. Punched the pillow. Rolled back.

Why so much damage? Where were my neighbors? Had no one heard the noise?

Was Ryan right? Was the episode more than a simple B and E? Burglars work in silence.

Why cut cleanly through the French door then smash mirrors and pictures?

Why mutilate the painting?

Another blast of anger.

Was the act a threat? A warning?

If so, to whom? Me? Anne?

From whom? One of my schizoid crazies? A random schizoid crazy? Anne’s buddy from the plane?

Thoughts winged and collided in my head.

I heard soft crunching, like whispered footsteps in sand. A weight hit the bed, then Birdie curled by my knee.

I reached down and stroked him.

“I love you, Bird boy.”

Birdie stretched full length against my leg.

“As for you, you loathsome son of a bitch. Yes, you’ve gotten to me, but one day we may have a reckoning.”

I was talking aloud over the gentle purring.

I awoke with a sense that something was wrong. Not full memory, just a nagging from the lower centers.

Then recollection.

I opened my eyes. Sunlight sparkled from flecks on the carpet and dresser top.

Birdie was gone. Through my partially open door I could hear a radio.

I found Anne drinking coffee in the kitchen, working a crossword and humming David Bowie.

Hearing me, she sang out aloud.

“Ch- ch- ch—changes!”

“Is that a suggestion?” I asked.

Anne glanced at my hair over the pink and green floral frames of her reading glasses, one of a dozen pairs she purchases each year at Steinmart.

“That do’s gotta go.”