The Woman Trapped Behind the Glass

“Excuse me Joshua but I seem to be stuck on this wall,” a voice says behind me. I look at my manuscript, now over five hundred pages long, and put down my pen. How long has it been since I’ve had a visitor? The wood floor creaks underneath me as I place two hands on my desk and push myself up. As I turn around, nobody is at my door. Am I imagining things?

“Not there. Up here!” I swivel my head to the right and see that a woman’s face is, indeed, on my wall. She seems to be trapped behind glass. Is she real? I shuffle over and analyze her green eyes, which hold my eye contact. With modern technology, it’s becoming harder and harder to tell what is man made and what is real.

“How do you know my name?” I spit out.

“You don’t remember me?” she asks. Her eyes drop from mine and her lips contort into a frown.

“No. Who are you?”

“My name is Anna. Anna Patronella.”

Pain shoots through my ankles and I retreat to my bed covered in grey sheets. Anna Patronella. Why does that name sound so familiar? But I would never have forgotten a name like that. In fact, I would never forget anyone. Especially not their face.

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“Joshua, come say hello to your auntie!” my Mama yelled from a distance. I abandoned my red bike on the rough rocks and raced through the backdoor of my childhood home. The powerful stench of baking apricots roared through my nostrils as I ran through the kitchen — there were two minutes left on the oven. As I entered the living room, my mama sat with a woman who smiled at me with a golden tooth.

“Oh, hi Auntie Esmerelda! How are you?” I said. My Auntie’s face twisted.

“How do you know my name?”

“I remember it from when you visited us!”

My Mama and Auntie looked at each other, sharing a look of confusion yet fascination.

“But Joshua,” my Mama stammered, “you only met your auntie at your birth”. A soft oven alarm rang through the house, but no one else seemed to notice.

“Well, I don’t know what to say. I never forget a face.” Silence swallowed the room for a minute.

“Joshua. Do you know who else was at your birth?”

“Of course! There was Mama, Papa, Auntie Esmerelda and Sasha, Uncle Hendrik, and the nurse named Marie!”. Once again, the alarm rang in the background but now accompanied by the smell of burning.

“Damn it! The apricot jam cookies are burning!” my Mama sighed as she ran to the kitchen.

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I had the sharpest brain back then. My Mama used to say I was smarter than a jackal, more cunning than a leopard. I feel my lips rise into a smile. There is no way I could have forgotten someone—- even at this old age.

“Hello? Joshua? Can you hear me?” Anna sings out. My head rises and I look at her again.

“I’ve been calling your name for the past ten minutes. Are you ok?”

“Yes. Perfectly fine,” I say. “Anna, where are you from?”

“I’m from Bakersville, of course… just like you.”

Hmmm. That is where I’m from. I guess there’s a chance she knew me from a distance and I didn’t know her. Maybe I’ll ask my son to search her up if he ever visits me. I stand up from my bed and make my way back over to my desk. Anyone from my hometown is a welcome guest in my room.

“Would you like a biscuit? Some tea?” I pry open my desk drawer, where I put all the snacks visitors bring me. I reach in and find that it’s empty. How is this possible? It was full just this morning. I open every drawer in my desk and find nothing. What the hell?

A dark sensation builds up in my heart until it blossoms into deep anger. Damn this nursing home. Everyone steals everything from anyone, no matter where you hide it. Eve stole it. It HAD to have been Eve.

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Eve fixed her eyes on the TV screen in the common room. She was watching 7 De Laan, my mama’s favorite show before she passed. On her lap was an intricate tea cup with gold edges and angels holding the handle. As I sat down in the spot next to her, she shot me a glance that screamed for me to leave.

“Hey, Eve! What are you drinking?” The dark liquid in the cup sloshed around. It looked like tea. She sighed and turned off the TV. Carefully, she studied me.

“I’ve just realized that we haven’t really talked since you moved in here a few days ago,” she said. At least she was kind of being receptive. It was lonely in the house. Most of the residents spent each day in their rooms, and even when they left for meals, they didn’t talk. Some couldn’t anymore, some simply didn’t remember how to.

“How do you deal with it? How do you not go crazy here?” I asked her.

“I’ll tell you. But you have to promise you will tell no one else.”

“I promise.”

Eve carefully looked around the room and leaned her mouth to my ear.

“You don’t. You lie to yourself that you’re fine. Never complain, and especially not to your family. The more you do, the less they visit.” She went silent before continuing, “and alcohol. Tons of it.”

I pulled back from Eve. Surely it couldn’t be that bad here. She was probably lying to me. Trying to scare the newcomer. My eyes wandered back to her delicate teacup, and I took a second glance at what was inside. Looking closer, I realized that the liquid was not steaming. It was not tea.

“Can I have some?” I asked.

“No. I barely have enough as is.”

“Come on, don’t be greedy!”

“I said NO!” she yelled. I lunged toward her teacup, trying to steal it from her. She flung herself backward, holding on tight. My fingers flew over the cup and started wresting it from her. Out of nowhere, the cup flew out of both of our hands and smashed into the floor.

“You DICK. That was a gift from my dead husband.”

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“EVE YOU’RE GOING TO PAY FOR THIS!” I scream at the top of my lungs. I tear all the sheets off my bed, start stomping as loud as I can, and try to rip out the drawers in my desk.

“Joshua stop! What are you doing? I don’t even want a biscuit! It’s fine I promise!”

“Shut up, Anna, you don’t even know me!”

“Stop saying that, Joshua. I DO know you!”

I walk from my desk to where Anna stares at me from behind the glass. She’s going to understand soon that not only do I not know her, but that glass is fragile.

“APRICOT COOKIES!” she screams, raising her voice. “Don’t you remember? When you brought me those burned apricot cookies all those years ago? Watching 7 De Laan with your mother and me? When I helped you with your temper tantrums? Did it mean nothing to you?”

My head spins, and I crumble onto the floor. What’s happening to me? Who is this woman? How does she know I have an anger problem?

“Who are you to me?” I plead.

“I don’t know,” she replies. “But I know there is something connecting us. It’s like there’s a chord tied from my heart to yours, bringing together two different worlds.”

I raise my eyes and look at Anna. “I’m going to break you out”. I search my room with my eyes for something to break the glass, but find nothing. By pushing against the floor, I stand up. There’s only one option. I raise my fist behind me and throw it with all the strength I can muster. It bounces against the glass but doesn’t leave a single mark.

“Anna, you’re going to need to trust me.”

“Always.”

I push my head against the glass separating me from Anna. I look at her and swear I can feel her breath on my face. Her lips and eyes beckon me, filled with kindness. She’s breathtaking. I let my head fall behind me, and in one quick motion, slam it against the glass.

Pain spreads through me, and I feel my warm blood on my hands. As my mind goes black, Anna’s in my arms. I feel safe.

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Voices flood into my ears.

“Your grandfather has been going crazy over the past few months. We can no longer take care of him here.”

“What did he do?”

“He’s been extremely hostile to one of our residents, Eve, and broke one of her teacups. She says he’s been greedy with everything in the house, even if it doesn’t belong to him.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. He refuses to share anything with anyone except family. Is that all?”

“No. For a week, he’s been talking about a ‘woman trapped behind the glass’ on his walls. Yesterday we found him with his room destroyed, on the ground, with a broken portrait of a woman in his arms.”

Both of the voices go silent until one continues, “The only portrait in there is of my grandmother, Anna Patronella, his wife. After she died a year ago, he’s been in shock. I feel guilty. I haven’t visited him since I put him here after her death.”

I shift my attention away from the voices and silently roll Anna’s name on my tongue. Anna. Anna. Anna. My wife. It feels comfortable. Perfect. I sit up in my bed and look at my bedside table. It’s my manuscript. I flip through the pages, each one blank, until I get to the last one.

On the bottom of the page, it reads in neat cursive:

Death did not do us part. Never stop enjoying your biscuits and cookies. Love, Anna.