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10 2 I drank enough coffee that night to stay awake all summer. What was happening to Stefan? Where was he? Was he in a cell? Was he being interrogated? Tortured even? Nothing seemed too crazy, too impossible. But then I reminded myself that Vanessa was at the jail too, and would be protecting him somehow. Wouldn’t she? I sat in the kitchen, too anxious to even leave the room. I drank coffee and watched Marco breathe. Friends with kids have told me that what I’ve felt watching him sleep is exactly how they felt when they had infants: deep abiding wonderment and a fascination that seemed bottomless . Marco had been abused by his previous owner, and every good moment he had with us struck me as a triumph over his hateful past. I studied him as he drifted into a dream now and then, making little “whoop-whoop” noises, his feet and tail twitching. Was he chasing a rabbit? Or was he dreaming about our home invasion? What would my dreams be like whenever I finally did fall asleep? Would I be able to sleep without wondering if it would happen again? Every little noise I thought I heard in the house now made me freeze. “They’re back,” I thought, hoping that was nonsense, but dreading it just the same. I turned on the kitchen laptop to stream classical music. I needed something to cover the quiet that seemed ominous. They were playing Rachmaninov, a cello trio, and its fierce mournfulness couldn’t have fit the moment any better. I had never felt so alone before. I thought of calling my cousin Sharon in New York because she was like a sister to me. Over the years, we had often spoken to each other in the middle of the night when trouble squeezed us in its fist. But this all seemed so alien, so incomprehensible , I didn’t think I could talk to anyone. What the hell would I say? Where would I start? How could I start? 11 I was ashamed, profoundly ashamed and couldn’t bear the thought of opening up that wound even to Sharon. I hadn’t done anything, yet I felt the SWAT team had humiliated me, stripped me of my dignity forever. How could I drive down our street again or even take out my trash? People would be staring at me, whispering about me and Stefan, speculating as to what had brought the police to our house and violated the peace of one of Michiganapolis’s prettiest neighborhoods. So I sat there, in a black hole, shrinking deeper and deeper into myself until Vanessa called around 4 a.m. from the jail to say that Stefan wasn’t being charged, and that she was bringing him home shortly. “We’ll discuss everything when I get there.” I took that to mean she didn’t want anyone overhearing what she said. And that was okay. I eked out a few words of thanks, hung up and waited. I had no idea where or how far away the jail was. Nothing made sense to me. It was as if some internal mechanism of gravity had failed and my thoughts drifted in every direction. No, it was much worse than that. I myself was drifting, as helpless as the astronaut in 2001: A Space Odyssey who’s been cut loose by Hal. I was surrounded by a void and would never be safe again. I’m not religious, I didn’t curse at God and ask how something so awful could happen to me and Stefan. But I couldn’t stop reflecting on how my life, our lives, had been almost uniformly positive for six straight years (except for one of Stefan’s students killing himself about a year ago). Stefan had written a best-selling memoir about his surprising conversion from Judaism to Catholicism; I was no longer at the bottom of the heap in my Department of English, American Studies, and Rhetoric (EAR); my elderly parents were healthy; and Sharon’s cancer continued to be in remission. We had a good solid life, a wellbehaved dog—none of it was the stuff of drama, and I liked that. I enjoyed teaching my classes, working on inviting the yearly guest writer to SUM, taking car trips to Lake Michigan or into Canada. I had never imagined I could be happy anywhere else but New York City, yet here I was, contented...

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