Again, hopeful, like opening the fridge only five minutes after you last looked, “Marcelle, is that you?”

When no answer came, she closed her eyes again, gripping the sheets. “Just because I tried to kill myself, Lord,” she prayed, “does not mean I want to die.” A heavy footstep toward her bed, then another, then more. In five steps, she knew he was beside her. Tasting blood on her tongue as she bit into her lip, she opened her eyes, wide as she could, attempting to convey courage, feeling none at all.

A man, maybe six feet tall, maybe dark, maybe foreign, maybe a man.

“Ruby?”

The blood from her lip trickled down her chin, the metallic taste mixing with the fear on her tongue.

“Ruby, is that you?”

She raised her hand from her side and brought it slowly to her mouth. With the back of her hand, she tried to wipe the blood away, but managed only to streak it across her cheek, onto her neck, and back down to the white hospital sheet. It was more blood than a lip ought to contain and she wondered if perhaps it were fake and she were being filmed, her terrorizer and extra hired by Sean to get a true reaction.

“Do I know you?”

“You did once. I doubt you would remember me. I used to be a friend of your family. I lodged in your house for a few months.”

Ruby gasped, a rivulet of blood passing back into her throat so that she almost gagged. This was not how it was supposed to be. He was never meant to see her like this. Or maybe he was? Maybe that was the whole point of the past week. That this was the only way to see him again. Not certain how to proceed, she leaned over to the night table and gargled with the water in the plastic cup.

Holding the water in her mouth, she eased herself out of bed and went to the bathroom where she spat into the sink. Wiping her face with a wet paper towel, she looked for the answer in the mirror, as she always did. As ever, the answer did not come. She padded past him without a glance, and hauled herself back into bed. Fluffing her two sad pillows as best she could, she leaned back, ready to talk.

“I think I know who you are.” She did not want to say it aloud in case the words chased him away. He did not want the words said in case they obliged him to leave. Her own Scottish Play, bad luck after all? And all this time she had imagined him her good-luck charm. He was heavier. The thick hair had continued to sprout, in new, uncalled-for places: his nostrils, the nape of his neck, his ears. He had a black and white beard, neatly trimmed, and his mouth sat like a red interloper inside it.