Turn of Mind by Alice Laplante

is in front of me. And I ignore the two women who are in my kitchen, two of the multitude of half-familiar strangers who have been intruding, who take such liberties with my house, my person.
    Even now, one is leaning over my chair, hand outstretched, trying to pat me on the head. Pet me. No. Stop. I am not a wild thing to be soothed by touch. I will not be soothed.

    There is one picture of James that I like and only one. It is James at his most pompous, his most self-promoting, self-gratifying. He could have a crown and a leopard robe about his shoulders and he wouldn’t look more ridiculous.
    I love it because it is honest. I love it because it is true. In his other photos he appears spontaneous, open, game. But that was the pose. In reality, he has too high an opinion of himself to accept most people as equals. That I see this about him doesn’t make me love him any less.

    I call for Amanda. I close the door behind me, put the key in my pocket. All is quiet. I fumble, find the light switch, flip it upward, and the hallway is flooded with light. Hey there! I say, louder this time. Nothing. Perhaps she is out of town? But she would have told me. Reminded me to water her plants, take in her mail, feed Max.
    That reminds me. Max! I call. Good kitty! But no jangling bell, no skittering of claws across hardwood.
    Yellow tape has been strung across the entrance to the living room: police line do not cross. I walk into the kitchen, which I know as well as my own. Something is wrong. None of the noises of a living household. No electric hum from the refrigerator. I open the door. The inside is dark and rank smelling. The water pipes that give Amanda perpetual insomnia, silent. No squeaking floorboards.
    Yet something is here, something that wants congress with me. I do not believe in the supernatural. I am not a fanciful woman, nor a religious one. But this I know: Revelation is near. For I am not alone.
    And from the shadows she comes, barely recognizable, so brilliant is her complexion, so golden her hair. She is dressed in a plain blue suit, sheer stockings, low-heeled shoes. I have never seen her attired like this, like a seventies-style junior executive intent on ascending the organizational ladder. Corporate angel. But her face is twisted in pain, and her hands are bandaged. She holds them out to me.
    I take hold of her right wrist and gently begin to unwrap the coarse cotton from her hand. Around and under and around until it is revealed: perfect, white, and soft to the touch. The unblemished hand of a good child. I compare it to my own liver-spotted ones. Those of the witch that lures the child into the forest, fattens her up to eat. The hands of a sinner.
    Suddenly Amanda and I are not alone. My mother is there with her virgin martyrs. And my father, too, wearing, oddly enough, a motorcycle helmet and jacket, when he was too terrified to ever get a driver’s license. And James, of course, and Ana and Jim and Kimmy and Beth from the hospital and Janet and Edward and Shirley from the neighborhood.
    Even Cindy and Beth from college and Jeannette from before that. My grandmother O’Neill. Her sister, my great aunt May. People I haven’t thought of in decades. The room is full of faces I recognize, and if I don’t love them, at least I know their names, and that is more than enough. Perhaps this is my revelation? Perhaps this is heaven? To wander among a multitude and have a name for each.

    It is dark here in my house. I bump into something with a sharp edge, bruise my hip. I put out my hands and feel a wall, a door frame, a closed door. I try the knob. It will not open. I need the bathroom, badly. Where is the light. I want to go home. Home to Philadelphia. I’ve been here long enough. A prisoner.
    What crime have I committed? How long have I been incarcerated? It’s often safer to be in chains than to be free . Who said that? The pressure in my bladder is too great. I squat. I pull up my