There was no door.

The woman stared at the square, and I could tell she wasn’t sure why the door wasn’t there. She stood, took a few steps away, and chuckled to herself.

“Of course,” she said in a quiet voice. She reached out one arm—it seemed a very long arm—and beckoned for me to come to her again. My feet were very heavy and I wanted to go back to sleep, but not because I was tired anymore. I wasn’t tired at all. I was scared. I thought cutting the rectangle out of the carpet was the hardest thing to do, but I could tell she wanted something else now, and it worried me.

She knelt again and drew another rectangle, this one bigger than the first. That’s when I started feeling sick to my stomach because I knew how much the carpet meant to Tom, but the woman was depending on me, I could tell. I started to cry, Grampy, but quietly, because I didn’t want her to see. I thought that if I only had to cut out the first small rectangle, I could fix the rug so that no one would see. I didn’t know how, but I thought I could figure something out. But cutting out another piece? This was no good. I was ruining the rug for sure.

But she told me again it was for you, that I would be doing it for you, and that it was very important. Her voice was so sincere and kind, so I cut again. This one was harder. I went around three times, four times, and each time I couldn’t quite find the same line, so the rug was sliced and the material started to fray and the edge was raw. This piece was not like the last one, cut nice and neat, but torn so that I would never be able to fix it. I’m so sorry. I cried and cried while I cut it.

When we peeled and tore that piece away, there was nothing but hardwood, and the floor was even more ruined than the first time. I’m so sorry.

She stood, and we did it over and over again, and each time the woman grew more and more frustrated and sad. After I cut the last piece and pulled back the carpet, only to see there was no door there either, she was gone.

Gone.

And there were no doors. No doors anywhere.

I’m so sorry.

The Boat

Oh, Pearl.

My anger subsides in light of your story, replaced by a sick feeling in my stomach at the state of the carpet and a deep, deep sadness at the realization that something is very wrong with you, with your mind. How could you do this? Why? What would bring you to this?

But I don’t ask any of these questions out loud. I start gathering the scraps of carpet and piling them beside the bed. “Where will we go, Pearl?”

“What?”

“Where will we stay? Tom won’t let us stay here anymore, not after this.”