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The jarring noise in the middle of the night, the open window, the empty bed.
I should have known right away that something wasnt right.
Credit: Sarah Jastre
Its the alarm clock that wakes me.
Esthers alarm clock hollering from two doors down.
Shut it off, I grumble, dropping the pillow to my head.
I still hear it.
Dammit, Esther, I snap as I kick the covers to the end of the bed and rise.
My roommate, I say, poking him in the ribs, is awake.
You have to go.
You have a roommate?
he asks, sitting up in bed, yet beset by sleep.
Dimples are not dimples at all, but rather laugh lines.
You have to go, I say to him again, and he does.
I follow the trail of noise into Esthers room.
The alarm clock, a droning noise like a cicadas song.
The sun wont rise for another hour.
Its not yet 6:00 a.m. Esthers alarm screams at her like it does every Sunday morning.
Time to get ready for church.
Saint Esther, I call her.
When I enter Esthers bedroom, the first thing I notice is the cold.
Drafts of frosty November air sail in from the window.
Frost covers the insides of the window, condensation running in streams down the panes of glass.
The window is pushed up all the way.
The fiberglass screen is removed, set to the floor with cause.
Parked cars line the street, caked in the last batch of fallen leaves from nearby trees.
Frost covers the cars and the yellowing grass, which fades fast; soon it will die.
Plumes of smoke escape from roof vents on nearby homes, drifting into the morning sky.
The whole of Farragut Avenue is asleep, except for me.
The fire escape is empty; Esther is not there.
I say as I make my way across the boxy bedroom, hardly big enough for Esthers double bed.
Rise and shine, I say as I smack my hand against the alarm clock to shut it up.
Dammit, I swear, and then, losing patience, Esther!
Ridiculous, I know, even as Im doing it, but I do it nonetheless.
But Esther is nowhere.
Smart decisions arent really my forte.
In all honesty, though, my first thought isnt that something happened to Esther.
When I wake for the second time, its after ten.
It doesnt take a brainiac to know that its cold.
Because thats what she does every Sunday after singing in the church choir.
Last night I went out, but Esther didnt go with me.
She had plans to stay home and rest.
She was on the sofa, buried beneath the blanket in her comfy, cotton pajamas.
Come with me, Id begged of her.
Come with me, I begged, but she said no.
Id be a killjoy, Quinn, she said instead.
Youll have more fun.
Want me to stay home with you?
I asked, but it was a halfhearted suggestion.
Well order takeout, I said, but I didnt want to order takeout.
I was in a new baby-doll dress and heels, my hair was done, my makeup was on.
But at least I offered.
Esther said no, go without her and have fun.
And thats just what I did.
I went out without her and I had fun.
But I didnt go to that martini bar.
No, I saved that for Esther and me to do together.
When I came home for the night Esther was in bed, with her door closed.
Or so I thought at the time.
Is that what sent Esther clambering out the window in the middle of the night: a guy?
Of course at the end of that tale, Romeo poisons himself and Juliet stabs herself with a dagger.
I read the book.
Better yet, I saw the movie, the 1990s adaptation with Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio.
I have no energy.
And then the buzzer beeps from the first floor and I rise quickly to my feet.
I let myself into Esthers room without a hint of remorse, without a whisper of guilt.
Esthers room is the smaller of the two, about the same size as a large refrigerator box.
Her double bed spans the room, popcorn wall to popcorn wall, leaving hardly anywhere to walk.
Thats what eleven hundred dollars a month will buy you in Chicago: popcorn walls and a refrigerator box.
I was okay with that.
And the building has never once caught on fire.
Whats wrong with the front door?
Its not as if Im worried because, really, Im not.
Esthers been on that fire escape before.
But even if she was there last night, Esther certainly isnt on the fire escape now.
Where could she be?
I peer inside her closet.
Yes, I tell myself.
Thats exactly what she did, an assumption that reassures me that Esther is just fine.
Shes fine, I tell myself.
I stare out the window at the quiet afternoon.
The mornings coffee blitz has given way to a caffeine downer; theres not a soul in sight.
I imagine half of Chicagoland perched before the TV, watching the Bears claim another stunning defeat.
And then I turn away from the fire escape and begin my search of Esthers bedroom.
What I find is an unfed fish.
A heaping pile of dirty laundry spilling out of a plastic hamper in the closet.
Bras and granny underwear.
A stack of white camisoles, folded and set beside the hamper with care.
A bottle of ibuprofen.
A bottle of water.
I set my hand on a desk drawer handle, but I dont look inside.
Thumbtacked to the wall I find a photograph of Esther and me, taken last year.
It was Christmas and together we stood before our artificial Frasier fir, snapping a selfie.
Were laughing, me with a complacent smirk, and Esther with her gregarious smile.
And, of course, the tree.
Wed gone to that facility together last December, on a mission to find that Christmas tree.
We trudged through embankments of newly fallen snow, our feet getting stuck in it like quicksand.
Only snowplows braved the city streets that day, and even they skidded along in a zigzag line.
Work had been canceled, for Esther, for me.
Fate, said Esther, but I said it was more like a stupid coincidence.
Seeing as the tree was disassembled and stuffed in a box, it was hard to find.
There were a lot of boxes in that storage facility.
A lot of boxes.
she snatched it quickly from my hand and said point-blank, No one.
But I didnt push the issue.
Esther didnt like to talk about her family.
While I groaned and griped about mine all the time, Esther kept her feelings on the inside.
She tossed the picture back in the box and replaced the lid.
We watched the snow fall.
We laughed at people trying to drag themselves through it, or excavate their cars from pyramids of snow.
Those that were fortunate enough to dig themselves out called dibs on their parking spots.
They filled them with random thingsa bucket, a chairso no one else would park there.
Parking spots were like gold around here, especially in winter.
I could hardly ever get warm.
I look down at my feet and there they are: the woolly slipper socks.
But where is Esther?
I continue my search, for what I dont know, but I find stray pens and mechanical pencils.
Boxes of shoes line the closet floor.
Absolutely nothing with heels.
Absolutely nothing in a color other than black or white or brown.
I put the cap back on the water; I pick up the pens.
How was it that I never realized Esther was such a slob?
I muse over the thought: What else dont I know about my roomie?
And then I read the note because, of course, how could I not read the note?
Its a note, which is all sorts of stalker-ish.
And thats when it hits me: maybe Saint Esther isnt such a saint, after all.
