A week later, I was on my way back home. I could finally walk again. All the bite marks on my leg disappeared as if they were never there in the first place. All the pain they had given me—for some reason I couldn't remember what it felt like. It had all become a vague memory.
The taxi pulled by the front gate. I reached into my pocket for my wallet. Good, I still had enough left for the ride.
As I rang the doorbell and waited, nobody ever came to open the door.
I took out my wallet again and opened up the small zipped compartment in the front.
The substitute key was inside. Next to the key was a dirty folded piece of paper.
After turning the key inside the lock, my hand rested on the handle for a long time.
I didn't want to open the door.
I pushed on the handle and stepped inside.
A large tiger was lying by the staircase. It just looked at me once then went back to licking itself. She had trained him well enough not to eat just anyone who entered the house.
Margaret came out of the kitchen room, and I immediately saw it.
A black prosthetic toe on her foot.
I ran to embrace my wife.
Later she told me about a car accident she'd had which broke a few minor bones in her leg. The toe was so badly damaged it had to be cut off. It was all she needed to tell me. I never asked her anything else about it and she never brought it up again.
The small awning window led to a view of the blue sky beyond.
I sat at my desk, the dirty folded piece of paper in my hands.
It was the sketch of Margaret.
She'd put it back when I didn't notice.
I couldn't bear to look at what was inside. But I couldn't throw it away, either. My eyes were fixed on the sky outside the small window in front of me.
"What are you looking at?" Soft arms slipped down my chest from behind and wrapped snugly around my neck. They were warm and tender.
I slipped the paper in my wallet.
"What's so special about it?" Margaret asked me. The fragrance of soap emanated from her body; it wasn't sweet like lavender, but the presence of pine was just strong enough to pull you into a trance.
She said, "Why do you need to look out the window when you can look at me?"
"Can you guess?"
"Well~... I don't see any clouds... Whatever you're looking at obviously can't be prettier than your wife. Unless you're seeing something that shouldn't be there." She dug her claws into my chest. "Don't you dare daydream about some other woman."
"I wouldn't dare." I chuckled nervously.
She tossed out her second guess. "Hmm... they used to look at the sky to tell time."
"They did, but that's not why I'm looking."
"Uhmm..." After a while she let out a long sigh. "I don't know, dear. You tell me."
"I was wondering why the sky looks so small from here. I can't see the stars behind the blue veil. Just how big is it out there? Space is like a larger ocean. Sometimes when I look at it, I wonder if there is a shore on the other side."
Margaret pressed herself against my back and kissed me on the crown. "Do you want to go there, captain?"
I couldn't tell her.
Sometimes.
But it might be too far away for me to reach.
Someone had also once told me that the sky would disappear one day.
Despite its vastness, when viewed from certain angles, the sky was also very small.
Small and delicate.
I had to remind myself that I could only look, but never touch the sky.
Because I knew that if I ever tried to reach out and touch it.
I might just lose it, too.
We continued to look at the view from outside the window.
Margaret slowly let go of me. "Let's try again today." She walked to the desk to pick up the pen and a piece of paper, then put them on the table where I was sitting.
I shook my head.
"It's okay," she said, "we'll do it together."
I felt the cold metal of the pen in my grip.
As the tip touched the white paper, a drop of black ink rolled out. My hands were shaking.
"Just like old times," she said.
I dragged the pen to the right. The line strayed from the grid.
Margaret put her hand over mine. Then she moved it down a line, and gently pulled across, the pen sliding along the grid.
Then the next line.
Then a vertical line.
Then the next line.