The Fourteenth Step

The first thing you do in a new house is count the stairs. You don't mean to — your feet just do it. Ours had thirteen going up and fourteen coming down. I noticed it on the second night. I was carrying laundry down at 2 a.m. because the dryer buzzed and I couldn't sleep, and my feet knew before my head did: thirteen, thirteen, thirteen — and then one more. A fourteenth step the morning didn't have. I told Daniel. He counted, twice, laughing, and got thirteen both ways. He marked each tread with chalk on the back of my hand and made me walk it while he watched. "Count out loud," he said. I did. Fourteen. He did. Thirteen. We fought about a staircase at midnight. That's what it came to. "You're tired," he said. "You're scaring yourself." So I stopped counting. For a week I went down with my eyes half closed and just let my feet find the floor. Then one night Daniel came home late and found me sitting on the second tread, barefoot, staring up. "It's gone," I said. He sat beside me. He knew what I meant. "Try it now," he whispered. I climbed, counting. Thirteen. I came down, counting. Thirteen. He put his arm around me, relieved, and I almost let myself believe him. Then he stood to make tea, and I watched his foot land at the top of the stairs — and the wood dipped beneath it, soft as a held breath, and for a heartbeat he was standing on something that wasn't there. He didn't fall. He just paused, one foot in the air a beat too long, like the stair had caught him and set him gently back down. "Thirteen," he said. But his voice cracked on it. We moved out in November. I never told the landlord. I tell myself someone else lives there now — someone who counts, someone whose feet know things their head won't admit. Tonight, wherever you live: count your stairs. Going up. Then coming down. Out loud, both ways. Tell me you get the same number. And if you don't — tell me that, too. I'll be the one who believes you. This story is: FICTION.