Walker sits across from her pulling sandwiches from the paper bag. She hesitates to speak, remembering the last words he said to her, standing in the foyer that morning, her favorite flannel jacket slung over his shoulder: “I can’t take much more of this. I come over, and it’s like I’m walking into some other guy’s relationship.” She feared he would not return. Already believing her incapable of love, now she must seem crazy. He hands her a packet of plastic utensils and crumples the paper bag.
She begins telling him about the land contracts she’s processing, outlining each step, until pausing to ask about the oak cabinets he’s installing up the street. He squints at her as though hearing gibberish. Finally, he blurts out, “Trina, what are we doing?”
“We’re having dinner,” she says, trying to convince them both that by acting like a regular couple, they will become one.
“You know what I mean,” he says, face serious. “What’s going on with us?”
Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpses something in the living room. Past Walker her dad is sitting in the armchair in the same soiled suit he wore the last four days, the same suit he likely wore to his funeral. She tried ignoring him, believing he must be a figment of her imagination. Then, she told him to leave, but there he is, this time intruding on her with Walker. Another daughter would have knelt by his deathbed, setting matters right, so he would go to his grave in peace.
Walker bites into his club, brow furrowed, thinking, she hopes, about why she’s worth the trouble or better yet why she’s the kind of woman he’d be a fool to leave. Meanwhile, her dad stares at her with his light brown eyes. He’ll make matters worse with Walker, even more than he already has.
Determined to show she cares about their relationship, she replies, “We’re spending time together.”
“We’re sitting at a table,” he says, knocking on it. “You’re in your world. I’m in mine.”
“You’re losing this one,” her dad announces from the chair. “You need me, or he’ll leave for good.”
She glares at him. Her dad is responsible for this mess. Before he showed up, she and Walker were working on their problems. She listened, really listened, a couple of weeks ago, when he said, “You say you love me, but something’s stopping you from feeling it. I’d like to know what that is.” Unsure how to reply, she replayed his words, admitting finally to herself that she had lived with a secret for so long it wrapped around her like a second skin. Walker wanted to know what she was hiding, and for this reason, she wanted to explain but could only rehearse this response: “I do love you, but when we embrace, sometimes I only feel my own arms around me.” She never got around to sharing it, since a few days later, an aunt, who she never met, called to say her father had died of a heart attack. Stunned, she stood by the bed, the phone loose in her hand, about to fall to the floor. Her skin tingled all over. She touched her shoulder, sure she would find something light, feathery clinging to it, but her fingers brushed the surface of her skin.
A week and a half later, she grips the seat cushion with both hands. “I know I haven’t been myself lately, but this won’t last.”
“Haven’t been yourself? One moment you’re staring into space, the next, you’re ready to pounce when I enter the room.” He lowers his voice. “Do you not want me around?”
“You’re the only one I want around,” she says and means it.
He combs back his hair with his fingers, a habit she’s grown accustomed to, without realizing it. Months before, they sat watching the sun set at a park nearby on an early date. As pinks and purples stained the horizon, he turned towards her, combed back his hair, and rested his palm face down beside hers on the bench. Hope bloomed in her, hope that lay shriveled after so many breakups. This will be different. He inched his hand closer wrapping her pinky in his. He looked at her, eyes steady, nodding as if to say, I’m ready for something different too. Surely, she’ll see a glimmer of hope in his eyes now.
Her dad leans forward. “A walk down memory lane. You think that will work? Try honesty. Try telling him I’m dead, and you hid it from him.”
She glances at her dad with his arms crossed then back at Walker with his brows raised. He’s waiting for her to explain why she wants him around. Part of her rushes from the room.
As if standing in the kitchen, she hears Walker say, “I didn’t mean to upset you, but the last few days…none of it makes sense.”
She freezes on the tile. Her father’s dead. Buried somewhere, his corpse is rotting in the ground. Yet that man out there is her father. Stooped and wrinkled, he is the man she last saw when she was six-years old. She fumbled in her closet for her polka-dot suitcase, already packed months before. She listened for her mom tiptoeing through the house gathering blankets, food, and anything else they’d need. In the hall, her mom took her hand, and they crept towards the front door, careful not to wake up daddy. They must not wake up daddy. Driving away, her mom muttered, “No good. He’s no good.” But she didn’t ask what her mom meant, certain that what they never talked about didn’t happen. The farther they drove, the more her dad receded until he existed only in that house they left. To remember him, she needed to return home.
Instead, she told people just enough so they would believe he exists, in the end, describing the house more than the man. But Walker’s unlike other people. In the next room, he’s waiting. He wants to understand what’s happening to her. He wants to understand why she won’t let him in. But how does she tell him about the father she hardly knew, the father she thought was confined to the past but who is sitting in the living room, the father who looks at her with a gleam in his eye as though he’s told her a riddle that only he knows how to answer? Her bare feet press into the kitchen tile. Tingling rises up her calves as though a pair of socks she scrunched down stuck to her skin along the way. The tingling spreads, covering her legs. She grasps her knee, wanting to touch something soft, furry even. But her fingers glide over bare skin.
She joins the rest of her sitting at the dining table. She is aware that the space she shares with Walker is shrinking. First, her dad appears, then her, the one who stood tingling in the kitchen. Does her father sense her in the other room? Is he waiting for her to take a seat before he joins them at the table? She glances at the armchair and finds he’s gone. Yet she feels no relief. Gazing at Walker, she realizes that her dad and the one in the kitchen are with them even when she refuses to admit it.
“Where did you go?” he asks. His eyes trace the contours of her face, and for a moment she thinks he notices a mark only visible to someone who cares about her.
“Lost in thought.”
Walker nods then places his palms on the table to steady himself. “I known for a while that you’re dealing with something. Lately, it feels like you’re carrying even more.” He peers at her with clear eyes. “Something’s changed, and I don’t know what to do except give you time.”
Time, what will that bring?
After a moment, she replies, “Time is what I need,” hiding her fear that when she does figure out what’s happening to her, he won’t be around.
She’s relieved when he says he’ll stay the night. She longs to lie beside him, their limbs intwined, their breath synchronized, the past so distant it fades away completely. But when he retires because he’s got an early day, she doesn’t follow him into the bedroom. She doesn’t watch him pull his T-shirt over his head and comb back his hair with his fingers before climbing in bed. If the tingling resumes, how will she explain? Instead, she watches him leave, head lowered, shoulders sunken. She doesn’t need to see his face to know he’s disappointed. She sits in the armchair, on guard should her father re-appear. She wants to look him in the eyes and see what her mother saw that night they fled. She wants to know without asking, to witness without being present at the scene. As she waits for him to return, she wills herself to listen for a secret inside herself that feels like it’s being broadcast on a shattered tv screen. But nothing reaches her. When certain that Walker is asleep, she retires to lay beside him, the silence filling the space between them just enough so she can breathe.
The next morning she dresses beside the bed. She steps into the legs of her jeans and pulls them up over her thighs. Walker’s in the kitchen–dishes clank, cabinet doors thud closed. He’s moving about as it if were a regular morning and his sole worry was getting to work on time. She buttons her jeans, hurrying to join him. Maybe he poured her a cup of coffee as he sometimes does. Maybe he is setting cream on the counter. Maybe he’ll tell her “Nothing’s so big we can’t work it out” before he kisses her, as he always does, goodbye.
“Forget about me?” her dad asks. He is leaning against the bedroom door frame, staring at her with real eyes, the kind that see everything.
She covers her chest with both arms, hands touching bra straps.
He shows no indication that he will turn away.
“How did you get in here?” she demands, having only ever encountered him in the living room.
“You’re in a bad mood. Still arguing with Walker?”
She flinches.
“You have to tell him about me some time.”
His eyes linger on her chest. She starts, expecting him to look down, his face stricken. But he grins, as if admiring stolen merchandise. She traces the outline of the door frame and sees him before the doorway of the home they fled. Shadows fill the house, denser the deeper she looks in. She hesitates to step forward, fears the knowledge that might bring. Suddenly, he turns. Beyond the door, she glimpses him further down the hall. She wants to catch up to him and scream “What the hell did that look mean?” But before she can, Walker pops his head out of the kitchen. His eyes lower, and she halts, covering her chest.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
She glances around the living and dining room. Her dad is gone.
Walker steps forward into sunlight falling through the kitchen window. A gleam catches his eye.
“Don’t look at me that way,” she stammers.
“What are you talking about? Why?” his eyes narrowing as though he doesn’t recognize her.
“Don’t.”
“Would you rather another guy look at you?” he counters as though he wants to face the truth. “That I’d understand.” He turns, revealing an empty mug on the counter.
In the foyer, he packs up his belongings, returning to the bedroom to grab a blue T-shirt he usually leaves behind. He zips his duffle bag and sets it by his feet.
Staring down at the bag, he says, “A minute ago you acted like I was a stranger. Maybe that’s all I am to you. Maybe the last few days have shown us that.”
He raises his head, ears piqued, waiting for her reply.
She searches for the right words to say but fears she’ll choke on them.
On the front stoop, with the screen door shut between them, he says, “I’ll stay at my place tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll stop by to see where we stand.” He turns and climbs down the stairs. He doesn’t look back as he walks through the dirt-clods and grass to his car.
She shuts the door and notices how quiet the house has become, as if it were on a plot of land broken off from the rest of the world. She wonders if Walker will change his mind and stay away this time. If he returns, will he insist she tell him what she’s been hiding. A feathery bud on her forearm begins to sprout. Then another. And another.
Mid-morning, she stands under the shower, water streaming over her body, pooling at her feet.
Moments later, she towels off, droplets of water still clinging to her skin. She towels off again then slides on her robe. After wiping condensation off the mirror, she stares at the smears of purple under her eyes. If only other signs of strain were so evident. If only other signs covered her body telling her why she is the way she is. She peers closer, just as her dad’s ruddy face appears in the mirror. She cries out and jerks around.
“What are you doing?” she demands, clutching her robe to her chest. He’s already seen too much of her.
“Aww honey, you don’t sound glad to see me. Walker’s not around.”
She steps back, cringing as he looks her up and down.
“Don’t say his name,” she warns.
He mimics a frown. “Still can’t make it work?”
She starts. Anger rises in the pit of her stomach till she can’t contain it. This is her bathroom, her house. He has no place in here, not when he was alive, not now. She reaches for his arm. Gripping it, she marches him down the hall towards the front door. If he can’t take a hint, she’ll kick him out.
“Ouch. You’re hurting me.”
She stops, recalling the way he gawked at her in the bedroom, then the bathroom. What kind of father does that to his own daughter? She tightens her grip.
She turns towards the kitchen. The kind who can’t be trusted, the kind who needs to be locked away so she will know where he is at all times. She can even spy on him to learn what kind of man he really is. She opens the door leading to the basement.
“Go,” she orders.
“Okay, okay. Whatever you say.”
She follows him to the bottom, noticing the blue tarp in the corner and the cooler off to the side. He’ll have to make do.
She turns back and climbs the stairs.
“I’ll be here,” he calls, “in case you need me.”
She slams and locks the door. She feels something light and airy tickling her neck. She brushes back what she thinks are whisps of hair that remain matted to her skin.
She steps forward, exhausted from his intrusions, exhausted from the space she keeps between her and Walker, exhausted from the memories of her dad she’s spent most of her life trying to bury.

The next afternoon she wakes, the sun high in the sky. Something is wrong. She lies still in her bed, feeling a gauze-like layer between her skin and the sheet. Several minutes pass. She grows certain there’s an extra layer, light and loose enough to unravel. Something is definitely wrong.
She draws in her limbs and rolls on her side. She catches sight of her left arm and blinks, sure dust is in her eye. She peers closer, shifting in bed. A ray of sunlight falls across her arm, revealing something nearly transparent attached. She sits up. Using her other hand, she begins to brush whatever it is away, but stops. Her hand and other arm are covered too. Something hangs from her skin. She raises her hands to her face. Beige-colored threads, some long, some matted, cling to her hands and run all the way up her arms to the edges of her sleeves. She peers down at her legs. Beige-colored threads run down them too. She undresses. Beside the bed, she examines her body. Clusters of threads enwrap her fully as though a garment she wore to sleep partly disintegrated into her skin overnight.
No one would recognize her, not even Walker who’s seen her naked, but never like this. She’d shock him, leaving him convinced that some kind of freak took her place. But a stranger…for a moment, she considers calling the doctor’s office until she hears “I’m sorry. I don’t know what we can do” on the other line. She winds her fingers through the threads on her forearm. No one will understand. Still, somehow, she knows the threads are a part of her, maybe even essential to her, even if others can’t see that.
Slowly she walks to the bathroom, feeling the air waft through the threads on her arms and legs. Her limbs feel pulled in all directions as she moves. Under florescent light, she examines the threads, pausing at her thigh. Three-fourths of the way down is a horizontal line, the threads frayed, paler than the rest. She feels her father’s eyes on her, tracing the edge of her jean shorts for the first time since she was five. Immediately, threads shoot from her leg, leaving a trail of dull pin pricks, while spreading across her thigh. She steadies herself, welcoming the extra layer that he cannot see through and no one can remove.
Her eyes move to her stomach. She finds a patch, the threads thicker, straighter, near her belly button. Her hand hovers above them, then heaves at the air, shoving away something invisible. It is night, her bedroom dark, the bulb in her mermaid night light burned out. Something lays heavy on her stomach. It slides down her body. She can’t move. A silent scream. The memory lost until now.
That morning, clusters of new threads appear across her stomach. She strokes the strings near her belly button, wanting them to thicken, to take over her entire body, leaving no part exposed. Days, months, weeks later, she can’t remember, she looks at herself in the bureau mirror, after climbing onto her big-girl bed. Threads enwrap her whole body. She stares at her naked form until she can no longer see the threads. She sees only herself.
Now as an adult, she gazes in the mirror above the sink at her face, neck, and shoulders covered in threads unmistakably. For years, they have covered her, the whole time she’s known Walker. Only now can she accept this.
After watching the sun set at the park months before, they strolled hand in hand to his car. Dim stars scattered across the indigo sky as they approached the empty parking lot. Suddenly, he pulled her close. She longed to feel his arms around her, his heart beating next to hers, his cheek pressed against her own. She yielded as threads enlivened all over her body creating a thick layer between them, imperceptible, but there just the same. He hugged her tighter, but the layer separated them, a barrier no amount of pressure could break. His arms fell away, his eyes distant, but he took her hand anyway.
Under florescent lights in her bathroom, her fingers release the threads covering her shoulder, the same shoulder Walker held that night. What was it he told her recently: “You say you love me, but something’s stopping you from feeling it.” She thinks of her dad locked in the basement downstairs. The threads have protected her, but at what cost? She gazes deeper in the mirror. Does she need the threads anymore after all this time?
She strokes a patch of threads on her forearm and takes a handful. Her skin has always appeared slightly fuzzy so that she never felt certain whether she peered at the surface of her own body or someone else’s. She wants to see herself clearly and know herself fully. She pulls on the threads surprised by how easily they loosen. With each pluck, her pores open and close. Her skin releases, smoothing out any imprint not her own.
She drops the threads onto the growing pile on the bathroom counter. Slowly she works her way down the other arm, carefully pulling discolored patches, thin and thick threads alike. The threads awaken and wrap around her fingers, making them easier to remove. Off they come, like dust falling to the floor.
She takes another handful, this time on her chest. The day before, her dad stared at her in the bathroom mirror, his breath tickling the threads on her neck, his eyes claiming a piece of her as if across her chest he wrote sold with his eyes. Except the threads prevented him from really seeing her, seeing the fullness of her breasts, the dusty pink of her nipples. This much she knows. She recalls marching him downstairs and gently pulls, adding another handful to the pile. With each pull, he recedes deeper into the basement as she emerges more fully into view, every naked part, at last, her own.
She drops the last handful of threads onto the pile and backs up to look at herself in the mirror. Her body is bare, sections of beige skin blend together as if every phase of growth she’d gone through left its trace imperceptibly behind. In her current form, she sees her transformation from a guarded child into a woman now open, receptive, wanting to be whole. Peering at her reflection, she feels united with her naked body for the first time.

Beside Walker she lies in bed. He showed up at her front door late, eyes heavy, palms turned out by his sides. “Well?” he said. She clasped his hands, beckoning him to survey her. After his eyes travelled up and down her body, he asked, “Did you work it out?” Her father. His hands. The threads. She nodded, almost ready to explain. But until then, she wanted to show Walker how she’s always felt underneath. She wanted to convince him he could never be a stranger. She tugs on his hands, pulling him towards the bedroom.
She traces the outline of his face, lying next to him, moonlight falling through the window. Her eyes lower to his chest, and she watches it rise and fall, as longing fills her. Her skin becomes charged as if each nerve ending is exposed to air. She slides over, and he wraps his arm around her. It rests perfectly on her shoulder, as though her skin molded itself to his touch. The pulse of desire beats, breaking fast, through her skin, drawing her to him. But out of the corner of her eye, she glimpses movement.
Her father rises at the foot of the bed, the moon behind him. He smiles knowingly at her then disappears. She pulls away, jarred. She’s certain she locked him in the basement downstairs.
“I can’t,” she says and climbs out of bed.
“Trina, I don’t understand. You started this.” He reaches for her, grasping air. “Wait,” he whispers as she leaves.
Her father’s locked downstairs. He can’t hurt her. Her father’s locked downstairs. He can’t stop her from being who she is.
She descends the stairs as her father looks up from the blue tarp on which he sits. She nears, determined to confront him without her threads, the short robe she slipped on hanging loosely, her bare arms and legs enlivening with each step. He stands; his eyes widen, his mouth opens, the smirk he’s worn across his face the last couple of weeks, gone. At the foot of the stairs, she stops, willing him to gaze fully at her, feeling animated as though light replaced the blood coursing through her veins, the longer he stares. He becomes less substantial, the density of his body thinning until splotches of the concrete wall behind appear. See, this is who I am, she says with her eyes. See, I have no reason to hide. He looks away, and she draws his gaze back to her, as more splotches of concrete appear. Just as his body nearly fades away, his mouth gapes open. She waits to hear him scream before he disappears. She knows that is the last time she will see him. She stares at the empty space he’s left, satisfied.
Footsteps fall on the stairs behind her. She turns to see Walker approaching, his eyes squinting trying to read her face. He descends the last stair.
“You left so quickly like you were chasing something.”
Behind her, the empty space her father left expands and multiplies as if a door that closed when he disappeared opened, and she is standing in the door frame, with boundless space beyond, her dad gone, the two of them finally alone.
Walker inches towards her.
She pauses, feeling the urge to pass through the doorway, to move freely in all directions, to stay beyond his grasp. But this choice is hers to make. With her threads gone, she now understands. Walker creeps forward as if she was a scared creature that might lash out with any sudden movement. He pauses then reaches out to embrace her, to calm her, to show her everything will be okay. She steps into his arms, diminishing the space between them. With his arms wrapped tightly around her, she answers the question he didn’t ask, “I was. My dad. The memory of him. I needed to capture it so I could let it go.”