don’t know. Maybe. I know who you are, not what you are. I watched you last Tuesday. In some ways you fit the profile of a peeping tom. In others you don’t. You were spying on that family, on the Peersons. I want to know why?”
Vincent flushed under her gaze. He turned and walked to a large oval Oriel window facing south west over Burbank. He would not face her.
“I hurt no one.”
“You could, what if the Peersons found out. You invade their privacy.”
He turned and looked at Teresa, his face suffused with anger and confusion, his icy not-thereness broken.
“It’s none of your business, you invade my privacy.”
“Bullshit! The public welfare is my business. Sitting in trees, watching other people live their lives isn’t exactly acting in the best interests of society.” She waited a moment. “Answer my question.”
Vincent’s knuckles were white around the glass of wine. He stared at her and said nothing. The ping of the wine glass breaking shattered the silence followed by the clatter of glass falling on the parquet floor. His mouth moved as he struggled to speak, but no sound came. Blood dripped from his hand unnoticed.
Vincent tried to answer but he could not. Teresa was caught in the struggle. She willed him to say something, anything. She had chosen sides and couldn’t bear that her side—Vincent—might not win.
He opened his hands in defeat. More glass and blood fell to the floor.
Teresa stood abruptly, pulled a handkerchief from her jacket and walked to Vincent. As she came close he shrank back. She took his arm, then his hand and wrapped the handkerchief around it gently.
“Is there a bathroom or a kitchen?”
He nodded in the direction he’d gone to get the wine. She led him through the door into a large, essentially bare kitchen. He followed, unable to resist.
Teresa led him to the sink, ran the water till it was warm, and carefully took the handkerchief from his hand. She placed his hand beneath the water.
“Just hold it there. Do you have a first aid kit?” He didn’t answer. “That’s okay, I have one in my car.”
Teresa didn’t notice that she had become very gentle, very focused on his hurt. Her words were soft, completely different than when she questioned him earlier.
Vincent pointed to the doors beneath the sink. Teresa knelt down, got the first aid kit, laid it on the counter and began removing bandages, tape, antibiotic cream.
“Are you dizzy? I get dizzy sometimes if I bleed. I can bring you a chair if you like? I’m going to run the water a little hotter. If it hurts, tell me, I’ll stop.”
She took his hand from beneath the water and dried it carefully with a towel. She stood too close. Her hair was in braids, the coils pinned to her head in a pile. Vincent looked at the fine gold hair on the back of her pale neck. He took a slow, deep breath, absorbing her smell. He was fascinated and repelled by her closeness.
“I’m going to make sure none of the glass is in your palm. It might hurt.” She looked at him to see if she should go on. He could not return the look.
Teresa bent over his hand and probed carefully with a pair of tweezers. “Don’t worry, I’ve patched lot’s worse than this.”
Vincent trembled, caught in a flood of emotion, terrible confusion.
She shouldn’t be touching me.
“There,” she bent down and looked at his hand closely, “I don’t think there’s any glass left.” She spread antibiotic cream over the cuts and put a gauze pad over the area.
“Here,” she took his other hand, “hold this in place while I cut some tape.” She looked at him and smiled. “I like your taste in wine, I drink the same kind.” He didn’t reply. He couldn’t reply.
When she finished she lead him back to the sofa in the atrium. “Please sit, it’s all right.”
Teresa went back to the kitchen, got a cloth and some paper towel. She cleaned up the glass and blood on the floor where he’d broken the glass.
“You mustn’t let blood stay on a beautiful floor like this. Blood is a terrible stainer.”
She shouldn’t be doing that. He was helpless before her certainty. A hundred shouting madmen couldn’t have caused more chaos. His own world was so tightly held in place it took very little to break the pattern. He’d been on the loosing edge of entropy too long. Chaos, even madness was just around the corner.
Teresa went back to the sofa and sat several feet from Vincent.
“Mr. Vankelis, I know this is upsetting. I didn’t handle it very well, but I must have an answer to my question.”
Vincent stiffened, his hands balled into fists. He could not look at her.
“Believe me nothing you say will go beyond this room. I don’t want to upset you.” She paused to think. “I can’t just forget it, but I don’t want to report something I don’t understand. If I arrest someone for B&E, you know, breaking and entering, I know what law to apply. If I get a drug dealer, I know why. I know where things fit in the law. I have evidence that you are a peeping tom, but no peeper I ever heard of avoids things sexual, and says good night with such affection.”
“Stop!” Vincent shouted. “Leave my family out of it!” He slammed his balled fists onto the top of the glass table. The glass, an inch thick, shattered and fell to the floor.
Vincent stood and looked around the room wildly. No way out!
“Please, go away. I hurt no one!” Every word squeezed out with the greatest effort. “I don’t, I touch no one’s life. They, do not touch me...that’s the way it has to be! I promised.”
His voice faded into a whisper, his pain, a palpable force in the room. He sat on the couch heavily, head bowed to his knees.
Teresa could not look at him any more. I shouldn’t have come. This hurts too much. It’s breaking my heart. What a silly phrase. God, it hurts.
Vincent looked up at her with stunned curiosity. Unable to stop himself he reached out and touched her face. His hand was large and square. She could see every individual hair on his knuckles.
She didn’t realize tears were streaming down her face. He looked at the moisture on his finger tip.
“Why do you do this? I don’t want to hurt you. I promised I would never, never make anyone cry.” His hands lay open, forgotten on his knees. “Families may make each other cry.”
Teresa looked at him and hurt. Always the accent on the family. He wasn’t talking to her any more.
“I am not allowed. I promised, I am not allowed.” Each word desperate, filled with shame, blame and regret. He turned to her again, held out his hands.
“Am I to be punished...forever?”
The tears ran down
