The Voice Beyond the Wallpaper

I couldn’t make a sound. My thoughts lurched through two decades of memories, searching for some detail that could undo what I was seeing. I wanted an explanation. More than that, I wanted the shoe to have nothing to do with Mark.

Early in our relationship, Helen had brought out cartons of photographs from Mark’s childhood. In picture after picture, his left foot turned inward. He’d been born with severe clubfoot, she told me, and needed a substantial brace through much of his early childhood.

From around four years old until he was nearly ten, Mark had worn a brace made especially for him, built from leather and heavy metal. Helen had joked about the expense and the long drives to a specialist several towns away.

The thick hinges had hurt him, she’d said. They had to be filed smooth, again and again, because rough edges cut into his calves. I remembered the old photographs, and the strange shape of the brace against his small leg.

My hand moved before I’d decided to reach. Trembling fingers found the corroded hinge on the little shoe Dave still held. Dust and rust coated it, but the clasp’s distinctive shape was clear.

I knew that fastening. It was the same unusual clasp I remembered from Mark’s brace in those childhood pictures. My stomach tightened as recognition settled over me, too solid to brush aside.

“Where did you get it?” I asked. The words came out faint and distant, as if I’d heard them from across a long hall.

Dave swallowed. His throat shifted above the collar of his flannel shirt. “It was lying on the boards inside the space behind the wall,” he said. “A narrow cavity, just past the plaster.”

He glanced toward the broken opening, then back at me. “I reached in and found it there.” He offered the shoe in my direction. I couldn’t bring myself to take it.

A queasy chill gathered in my belly. The shoe looked frail in his hand, but the sight of that familiar clasp made it feel unbearably heavy.

“Set it down,” I said, retreating toward the doorway. “Please. Just put it on the floor.”

Dave lowered it carefully onto the hardwood beside the broken plaster. He didn’t ask me about the framing or the beams now. Instead, he picked up his flashlight and crowbar, pushed them into his canvas bag, and pulled the zipper closed.

“I’m not billing you for coming out,” he said, eyes fixed somewhere past me. He swung the bag over his shoulder. “But I won’t close up that wall. Your husband can handle the repair himself. Take care, ma’am.”

He went by me and hurried down the stairs. The front door opened, then shut. Moments later, his van started with a roar; its tires skittered over the gravel as he drove off in a rush.

I was left alone in the room. Below me, Lily’s cartoon played its bright little tune from the living room, cheerful and impossibly ordinary.

A cold stream of air breathed from the ragged gap in the wallpaper. I stood listening to the cartoon and feeling that draft against my skin, while the shoe remained on the floor near the wall.

At last I made myself cross the room and crouch beside it. Dust whitened my gray sweatpants where my knees touched the boards. I stared at the metal clasp, trying to think past the fear.

Mark had always told me he’d never set foot in Pennsylvania. When we found the house listed for sale, he said he wanted to leave the city behind and begin again somewhere quieter.

He’d talked about the Victorian details, the old-fashioned design that appealed to him. The price, he’d said, was too low to ignore. His reasons had sounded simple enough at the time.

I’d told him that the yellow wallpaper reminded me of my nightmares. He’d smiled at the coincidence, held my face between his hands, and promised we could make the place a clean beginning.

But if this house meant a fresh start, how had part of Mark’s childhood ended up sealed inside its walls?

A heavy bang came from below. I sprang upright, breath catching as the front door opened and slammed shut. Then Mark’s voice rang up through the stairwell.

“Sarah! Did the drywall guy come by?” he called from the entrance. “I picked up mud and tape at Home Depot. If he wants extra for the work, send him off. I’ll fix the damn thing myself.”

Fear tightened across my chest. I looked from the shoe to the black opening. Mark couldn’t see it. He couldn’t know I’d found it—not yet. My heart pounded as his footsteps reached the foot of the stairs.

I didn’t understand why I was frightened of him. Mark was my husband; for nine years, I’d slept beside him. He was Lily’s father. Still, some instinct inside me insisted that I hide what lay on the floor.

I snatched up the shoe. Cold metal pressed into my palm, and a stale smell, faintly like old lavender soap mixed with rot, clung to it. I shoved it into the front pocket of my oversized sweatshirt and pinned my arm over the bulge.

Mark reached the top of the stairs with a plastic shopping bag full of trowels and joint compound. His face was pink from the October chill, and he was breathing hard. He saw me stiffly positioned in the third bedroom doorway, his smile fixed in place—then watched it falter.