Read A Stranger Like You for Free Online

might say I experienced an epiphany.”
    Hugh remembered the word from an English class back in college, but just now the meaning escaped him. He tried to think of something clever to say, but the look on her face, her eyes glassy as a dictator’s, rendered him speechless.
    “I want to tell meaningful stories,” she said. “I want to make people feel better about things, not worse. . . . I want to make people feel . . .” Her voice drifted off.
    “Feel what, Ms. Chase?”
    “Feel—” But her eyelids began to flutter and a moment later she went limp and dropped to the floor. When he’d bought the pills on the street, they’d told him this would happen—they’d told him not to panic. Eventually, the drug would wear off and she’d be fine. He stood over her, looking down at her motionless body. It was strange because her eyes were open. It worried him; he felt a little desperate. He got up and gripped her under the arms and shuffled backward as he dragged her into the living room and pulled her up on the couch. “Are you all right?” he said, fixing the pillows, but of course she couldn’t answer. Her eyes seemed to scream what have you done? He sat down gingerly, the way one sits at the bedside of a very ill patient. He held on to the arms of the chair as if something was about to happen—an earthquake—a nuclear bomb. But of course nothing did. He watched her closely, the rise and fall of her chest, grateful to see that she was breathing.
    There is the dream of something and it is a beautiful dream, he thought. And then there’s what’s real.
    He was beginning to feel bad and he didn’t want to feel bad. He stood up, looking down at her. He could leave now, he thought. Just walk away. Go home to his wife. But when Hedda Chase woke up she would call the police. They’d come after him, he’d be arrested. He imagined the look on Marion’s face as they put the cuffs on him. His life would be over.
    No. He couldn’t take that chance.
    He had started this; he had to finish it.
    It occurred to him that he hadn’t eaten for a very long time. His stomach grumbled and he felt dangerously light-headed. He went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. It was empty save for a loaf of white bread and a jar of green olives with beady red eyes. He took out the bread and a tub of margarine and found a knife in one of the drawers. He brought the food back into the living room and laid it out on the coffee table. He ate a butter sandwich and washed it down with the quart of milk only to realize after he’d drunk down half of it that it was sour. He spat some of it out onto the floor, making a puddle. “For fuck’s sake,” he said.
    Hedda Chase did not move.
    He went to the kitchen sink to wash out his mouth then washed his hands thoroughly, using the soap on the windowsill. He didn’t know why he was washing his hands, but he felt it was necessary. The soap was green and had a strong, masculine scent. The sun came bright at the window. He heard the sound of a chain saw and looked out and saw the neighbor trimming the lilac hedges on the other side of the concrete wall. The man was Mexican, shouting in Spanish to someone inside the house, whose hands could be seen in the window. They were the gnarled hands of an old woman, presumably the man’s mother, and they were gesturing sharply at the areas of the hedge she wanted him to trim. The man seemed angry. The woman shut the window and the lace curtains fell back into place.
    Hugh dried his hands on a dishtowel. The clock on the oven seemed to be broken, with the big hand stuck upon the little hand. In Hedda Chase’s kitchen time had stopped. Time was irrelevant. He went back into the living room and looked at her again and looked away. He glanced into her bedroom and saw the unmade bed. An ashtray full of cigarette butts on a pillow. Trapped under the same pillow was a little stuffed teddy bear, its fluffy legs sticking out. Instinctively, he reached under the