The Sleeping Wall

Jane M. Downs
rings and rings. Her mother steps out of her shoes. Stockings, skirt, blouse, under clothes fall to
floor. She sits on the bed, pours scotch into a glass, gulps it down, pours another.
Mesmerized by her mother’s nakedness, skin almost white as the sheet.
In the bathroom, water pours into the tub. La-la-la. Something taken from the medicine cabinet.
Quiet, except for running water. As if the room swallowed something hollow.
Water floods the carpet in long dark tongues that creep toward her. She moves through a liquid
haze, her hands and knees sinking into the wet wool.
Ladder of daylight through the blinds. She sees the shape of a snake on the wet carpet, a lamb.
With each movement forward something peels away.
A blade. Her mother’s head low in the water, arm outside the tub. On her hand, a red glove
shines. Downstairs, the clock chimes five.
7
He knocks, sits on the empty bench. Cut iris in a crystal vase, sheets of music stacked on a table.
He imagines his teacher in her blue dress, the row of buttons marching down her back. Without
her, he plays scales.
He is studying Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. He wants to make music match what he feels.
Every Tuesday, lessons beside his teacher on the bench, intoxicated by the beauty of her hands,
the wash of her music in which he can hear each separate note.
Upstairs a child screams. He lifts his hands. She screams again.
He finds her crouched on the bathroom floor. A skinny child, thin black braids trailing over a red
sweater dotted with stars. Her face a replica of her mother’s.
She clings to her mother’s arm. He pries her loose. She grabs at his face. He pins her arms, releases
her. She shakes her head with such violence, he holds her face between his hands to still her.
He carries her downstairs, her arms wrapped around his neck, legs around his waist like his
eight-year-old sister does. “My name is James. Don’t be afraid.”
He is shaking now. His voice breaks. And now he sees the hallway with the brass clock, the glass
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