Entry #38
February 26, 2024 — 3:00 PM
Light never lasts long in this house. By midafternoon the upstairs bath across from the landing read as dusk, even with the door open and the window free of paper. Cold enough to show on my breath when I scraped the trim. Smell was vinegar, latex, and old soap trapped in the wood.
The mirror is original to the wall, or near enough. Oval, beveled edge, silver backing gone to freckles around the perimeter so that the drywall shows through like islands. I’d thought to pull it and patch, but the plaster under it is hairline-cracked and I didn’t want to start something big two hours before the hardware store closes. I took a putty knife to the paint that had flowed over the frame in past lives and made runs like stalactites. Slow work. The blade hissed along the edge. Paint dust stuck to my fingers in a film that didn’t want to wipe away.
To see what I was doing I had to stand square in front of the glass. The room behind me showed in the oval: the jamb of the door, the landing beyond, the far window’s wan, February wash. My own shoulder, my hand, the knife. The foxing turned light into a ring of small night.
I tested the knife against a thicker knob of paint, levering gently to avoid cracking the glass. My hand came up. In the mirror my hand came up a breath later. Not a full second—less than the pause between a blink and the eye reopening. I felt my grip change and saw it change after. Then it was gone. Mirror and room snapped together like two edges of paper tapped flush.
I stood there with the knife hovering and listened. House sounds: a pipe somewhere changing temperature with a soft knock; a car going by three streets over; the faint draft sneaking under the window and sewing a line of cold along my wrists. I tried again. Lifted my hand, lowered it. Counted out loud once like an idiot. The reflection was where it should be, each time. No echo, no lag. The glass didn’t flex. I touched the edge. It was firm in its cradle.
Could have been the bevel catching, or my focus jumping between the real and the image. My head had started to throb behind the eyes from scraping. I rubbed my eyebrow with the back of my wrist and watched that too, and the mirror rubbed back in step, obedient.
One other thing, and I’m not certain it wasn’t the light. In the reflection the landing looked longer in that instant. As if the threshold carried two inches deeper than the boards I know, one more plank’s worth of distance between door and rail. When I checked, of course, it was the same tired floor, paint drips and all. I set the level across the top of the frame and the bubble sat dead center.
On the mounting strip behind the right side of the frame—exposed where the paint peeled up—someone had scratched initials with something sharp. E. B. Nothing else. The letters were so shallow I had to tilt my phone light to catch them. Could be anyone. Could be nothing. I went back to the putty, quieter.
I worked without meeting my own eyes. When I needed to adjust position, I turned my face a little, looked at my hands, the blade, the edge. I slid a towel over the mirror when the light dropped and left it there. I don’t need to prove or disprove a half-second to finish this room.
I avoided looking straight into that mirror again for the rest of the evening.
— Thomas Hale