Company

Spiders. Everywhere, spiders. They dropped from strings in the kitchen. They congregated in corners. Webs woven in cooperation to span the length of my bedroom ceiling. Nests in the dark recesses of my closet. It didn't matter where they'd come from. They were here now.

My sister had told me to burn the house down.

"It's what any sane person would do," Frances had said. She'd laughed about it at the time. I had, too. To say the thought hadn't occurred to me would be a lie.

Instead, I'd weather-stripped the perimeter of the house. Sealed off the cracks in the walls, barricaded the basement door shut. I laid traps. They'd be full up by the end of the day.

I found myself trembling in the foyer, too afraid to put on my shoes. They were in there, too. In my clothing. In my hair. The house I grew up in had ceased to be mine. I slept with the lights on, took my meals on the front porch. Of course, I wasn't alone there, either. More of them, the moths and the flies, insects of all kinds—they flocked to my presence. For months, I'd ached and longed for company to fill the empty space he'd left in our bed. Now I had it.

A swarm of gnats followed me to my car at daybreak. Windows up, windows down, it didn't make a difference. A moth made it up my nose as I waited for a coffee in the Starbucks drive-thru. Flies drowned themselves in my cup before I reached the stoplight on Elm. I merged onto the freeway in tears.

"Come stay with me," Frances told me over the phone.

I fixated on the arachnid crawling its way across the dash in front of me. "That won't fix anything," I said.

"No, but at least you could get some real sleep. You don't sound good."

I knew that. The eye bags in my reflection were evidence enough. "It's fine. I'll put some more poison down. That'll take care of them."

"I really think you should stay with me, just for a few days. It can't hurt. Besides, I miss you."

No, it was out of the question—the pestilence that haunted me might be contagious. The thought twisted a knot in my stomach. "I'll be okay," I assured her. "I miss you too. But I won't let them kick me out of my own home."

That was already a lie. I was on my way to a motel just off the interstate with my luggage in the back seat. "I'll call you soon," I promised. "I love you."

"Love you, too."

I hung up and squinted against the rising sun. The spider on the dash had crawled out of sight. A sob caught in my throat. Where did it go?

The first thing I did at the motel was dump my bags in the bathroom and slam the door. Hiding places—in the fabric, in the pockets. His old sweater. For just a few moments, I needed to feel normal. So I flopped down on the bed, worried at the wedding band on my ring finger. Closed my eyes and told myself the buzzing was only the radiator.

Sleep came in fits and starts. Ten minutes at a time, punctuated by scratching, things crawling in my ears, a face in my dreams—alive and beaming. At least I'd left the spiders behind. Bed bugs, I could deal with. Cockroaches, less so, but none had yet found their way into the covers. That was enough for me.

One o'clock became two, then three. Nothing could touch the bone-deep exhaustion. At four, it was time to face the day.

A shower. Hot water. A centipede in the soap dish. I didn't shriek. I simply sighed and allowed it to crawl down the drain along with the rest of the suds. It was enough to make me pick up the phone.

The exterminator picked up on the second ring. I explained my situation. Yes, it was an emergency. No, I didn't know where they could've come from. I was humiliated, ashamed of how completely I'd lost control. "Please come right away," I begged. "I'm not sure how much longer I can stand this."

The man on the phone would send someone to my house in twenty minutes. I got there in ten. I idled in the driveway, squinted through my bedroom window. I could see them from here, a great cluster of spiders, almost humanoid in shape.

The white van arrived after a short eternity, and with it, a young man in khakis and work boots. He joined me at the base of the driveway. I recognized him from last year's termites. His name was on the tip of my tongue.

"James," he said, offering me his hand to shake. "Termites again?"

"Everything," I said. "It's everything. I need them all gone."

He nodded and surveyed the house from afar. Was he seeing what I was seeing? "Gotcha. You wanna wait out here while I take a look around?"

"Yes, please," I said. I handed him the key to the house.

I watched him cross the flagstone path to the porch, fiddle with the key and disappear inside. My hands wrung together. He'd put something down, or he'd spray something, and everything would go back to normal. I could invite my sister over for dinner. We'd sit on the back deck and share a bottle of wine. It would be okay.

I counted ten minutes before he reappeared, tucking a flashlight back into one of his belt loops. His expression was unreadable.

"I couldn't find anything," he said. "That doesn't mean there's nothing there, though. I can still put some traps down, or do a full treatment. That'll cost about—"

"Did you see the spiders?" I interjected.

He blinked. "Spiders? No, I didn't see any spiders while I was in there. But if you're having problems with them, we can certainly—"

"Nothing at all?"

James frowned. "Do you want to go in together? I can show you where I was looking. You can point out where you've been seeing them, and I can check for access points. We can figure out where they're coming from."

"No, that's… okay. I think I need some time to think about this," I told him.

"No problem. Here's my card." A flimsy piece of cardstock extended in my direction. I tucked it into the pocket of my jeans. "If you do decide you want us to come back and put something down, just give us a call. The number's right there."

"I will."

"Take care, now," he said. And then he was gone, the van pulled out of the gravel driveway and disappeared down the street.

"Nothing," I said.

Crickets.

A moth tangled itself in my hair.

There were the tears again, streaking down my face as I stood in silence at the edge of the road. He'd found nothing. I took out my phone and placed a call to Frances.

"Please come pick me up," I said. "Something's wrong with me."

Frances' living room was spotless, save for a pile of laundry hanging on the back of a chair in the dining area. The smell of freshly-lit incense filled the air, and I sunk into the plush secondhand sofa with a heavy sigh. She brought me a mug of chamomile. I sipped on it, ignoring the crawling sensation around my ankles.

"The exterminator didn't find anything," I said.

"Yeah," she agreed. I didn't need to ask how she knew.

"I'm sorry." The words were heavy in my mouth. A confession. "I thought I could manage this on my own."

Frances's hand closed over mine and squeezed my fingers. "It's okay," she said.

I took another sip of tea, couldn't look her in the eye. By the time I'd drained the last of it, the stars were out. Frances had turned on the television to a reality TV show we'd enjoyed before she'd left for college. I couldn't find the same pleasure in it that I used to, but her company was enough.

"Do you want to sleep in my bed?" she asked at the end of the night. "You don't have to stay on the couch."

"I wouldn't mind that," I admitted. Then, unbidden, "I miss him."

"I know."

In a dimly lit bedroom so far removed from the one she kept as a child, I buried myself in a dark brown duvet and closed my eyes. Only her breathing and the soft hum of traffic; no clicking, no chirping. There were no cobwebs brushing against my cheek, no tiny legs creeping up my arms. They would be back in the morning. I would return to my house, and I would live amongst the things that had taken his place. In time, they would find their homes elsewhere. In time, I would feel clean again. I didn't know how long that would take, but someday my house would be mine again.

Our bed.

Eventually.