Little Bandaged Days

This edition first published in hardcover in 2021 by

The Overlook Press, an imprint of ABRAMS

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New York, NY 10007

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Copyright © 2021 Kyra Wilder

Cover © 2021 Abrams

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

ISBN: 978-1-4197-5224-7
eISBN: 9781647001988

ABRAMS The Art of Books
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For Alan,

and for Dashiell,

and for Dexter,

and for Daley

It’s harder to burn down a house than you think.

Shirley Jackson

Part One

1

It wasn’t true, what my mother said, when I called to show her the apartment, about the light. I held the phone up and tiptoed around while E and B napped but she only kept saying, It’s so dark! I can’t see a thing! You always live in the darkest places! Isn’t there a window you can open? she said. I’m worried about you!

I told her I was fine, that it was amazing here. That E had fed swans by the lake. That I had already learned to say bonjour. Bonjour, I said, and wiggled my fingers at her through the screen. I wanted her to see me like that, speaking French I mean. I had a baguette in the kitchen for her to see too, lying half cut on the wooden board with some piece or other of cheese next to it. A cherry tomato. She said she couldn’t see inside the kitchen.

Turn on a light. Ohforgoodnesssake, she said. The signal wasn’t really very good in the apartment so her words came out all at once or not at all and her face either jerked around the screen or was frozen.

Ohforgoodnesssake, she said again. I wiggled my fingers at the screen in a goodbye sort of way and mouthed, I LOVE YOU, slow, like I was shouting it.

Talk soon, I said, hoping she could hear me and air-smooched and pushed the red button to send her away.

Ohforgoodnesssake. She would have said that again, she would have been unhappy when I hung up on her like that, she wouldn’t have liked it a bit, but E would be up soon and I wanted to have a snack ready for her.

I liked the light, the half-light really, in the apartment. It was grey, soothing. To me it felt like the inside of an oyster. Delicate and safe and tucked away with us inside it. Everything was cool and clean and new.