Emily McDowell shut the door to her new red Porsche, the present she allowed herself after her first sale above twenty thousand dollars. She was an artist, her name and work echoing throughout the art world, connoisseurs all vying for the few sculptures she had on the market so far. Her prices were increasing at a vast rate, from the first sculpture she sold at three hundred dollars to the most recent at twenty-six thousand, a five-foot structure of metal, liquid crystal, and a red lamp at the bottom to make it appear as though it was on fire. It was the sale of this particular sculpture that led to the purchase of her car.
Her car beeped locked with the remote� you can never be too careful these days, she thought. She didn�t want to tempt fate, especially from what she could see of the surrounding area. The streets were filled with potholes and cracks, evidence of the thick, corrosive salt dumped by trucks every winter. Glass windows faced the sidewalks from dirty brick buildings on both sides of the street, most dark and empty. Each corridor between the buildings was a separate wind tunnel, the currents tangling her long brown hair in front of her face, the fringed ends of her blue scarf dancing merrily across the zipper of her down coat. The air was filled with the scent of the approaching snowstorm, with a hint of wet cat food� the kind the people on TV served their cats in crystal dishes. It became stronger, sharper in the wind tunnels.
The few trees she passed were babies tethered to sturdy sticks poked deep into the soil, their branches bare and bending beneath the weight of the ice. A tinkling of little bells could be heard each time the branches knocked together, a few stray icicles shattering as they hit the cold concrete of the sidewalk.
She rubbed her hands together, occasionally blowing a stream of warm air over them. The skin blanched as she rubbed faster and faster, tiny strands of dirt and dead skin forming like eraser shards between her palms before she shoved them into her pockets. Her breath plumed as she exhaled, creating a fleeting haze in front of her eyes. She glanced to her left as she passed what was left of Haas�s deli, the torn green and white awning making snapping sounds as it whipped about in the wind. The name above the door, once stylized and in flourished script, had been spray painted over to read: Hussy. The front window was covered in a filmy white residue in streaky semi-circles. She reached to touch it, but there was nothing on the outside except a thin film of city grime. Emily shook her head and kept walking, her eyes fixed on the brown and white Victorian in the distance.
Then, without warning, she was standing there, the dingy gray columns rising to vast heights above her and blending in with the sky. 487 Park Ave., Paterson. The frost in the grass crackled beneath her sneakers as she walked up the slope of the front yard. It didn�t occur to her to use the front walkway; rather, she wanted to feel the intimacy of walking on the grass that she once played on. Dark green footprints stood in her wake through the pale green of the ice grass.
Now standing a few feet from the front door, she was able to spot hairline cracks in the paint, and darker gray patches where the white had flaked off. On the first floor of the house, two slats of the venetian blinds were bent open enough to allow an eye to peer through. Then they were straight, the single sign of life in the house gone. Emily wiped her palms on her jeans and rolled her steps to the front door. Her knuckles rapped against the wooden door, the thickness muffling the sound, before she noticed the broken lighted doorbell to the left of the frame. A short melody ensued as she depressed the button.
The floorboards creaked as the person moved through the house, getting louder as they approached the door. A distinctive shuffling could be heard, despite the heavy door, the sound of the back of a slipper smacking and sliding along the floor with each step. The gauzy curtain on the window to the right of the door was pushed a side, and a round brown eye gazed through the glass. It reminded Emily of her favorite shooter, when she used to play marbles with her dad. Big and glassy. A chain slid in place over the back of the door, but the door remained closed.
�I don�t want anything you�re selling, whoever you are. Just leave me in peace. I have everything I need.� Her voice was creaky and old, strained as she shouted through the thick wood.
�Please ma�am, I�m not trying to sell you anything, I just . . .� Emily tried to think of what she wanted to say. She looked at the toe of her new Adidas sneaker as she ground it into the worn green mat.
�Did my son set you up to this? I told him, I�m not going anywhere, this place is good enough for me. I don�t need any fancy schmancy cars or big houses. I . . .�
�Ma�am,� Emily interrupted, �I don�t know your son, or anyone else in your family. I was just wondering, if I could, well.� Emily�s voice trembled and she began to play with the ends of her hair, each word softer than the last. �Well . . .�
�Speak up, girly, I can�t hear you if you don�t speak up.�
�The thing is.� Emily cleared her throat and spoke louder, �the thing is, I used to live here. And I . . . I was wondering if you would let me come in. I mean, I know you don�t know me and all, and you have no reason to trust me, but well, I really want to look around, and�� Emily stopped babbling as the door opened to the length of the chain. The shooter looked through the crack.
�How�m I supposed to know if what you�re saying is true? How do I know you�re not some nut job just trying to get into my house?�
�I don�t. I don�t know.� Emily looked down as she thought about how to convince the woman of her identity. The problem wasn�t one she had thought about before she left the house that morning. There had been no time to think about her decision before she was showered and dressed, the keys to her car already in the ignition. The thirty-minute ride had been filled with jittery excitement and curiosity, not caution.
She scuffed her toe on the mat again and lifted her head slightly to look through the tiny space between the frame of the door and the pink terrycloth robe of the woman in front of her. The house looked warm and inviting; the smell of baking chocolate permeated the air.
�Wait!� she exclaimed, the sudden realization snapping her head up. �I have an idea. I can show you my license. I won�t need it until I leave; I really don�t want to take up too much of your time. You can keep it �til you want me to go.� She reached into the black Kenneth Cole shoulder bag to pull out a matching wallet. It was behind a clear plastic barrier, the colorful picture and bright red stripe of the New Jersey license out of place in the expanse of black. She slipped it out and handed it through the crack of the door.
A plump, dark brown hand reached and grabbed the small plastic rectangle. The woman looked from the picture, to Emily, and back to the picture again.
�You look a little different from this picture. You do something to your hair?�
�Well, I cut it. And got it highlighted. Plus, that picture�s six years old, I got it when I renewed my license for my twenty-first birthday. So I might look a little older.� Emily blew on her hand and stamped her feet. She bounced on the balls of her feet, her hands clenched in tight fists inside her pockets.
The woman studied her face for a few minutes before shutting the door. The chain clinked as it was removed, and the door creaked open to reveal the rest of the old woman.
Her round, marshmallow face had the puffy features of someone who had just stopped crying. Dark hair covered her head, a few clumps of gray visible throughout. It looked like a sky on a very clear night. Bits of silver sparkled from the folds of her neck, the medallion at the end of the chain a small lump underneath her zip up robe.
Emily placed her right foot in the doorway � always walk in a room with your right foot, her mother used to say, it was good luck � and stood inside.
�Thank you so much, Mrs�?� She waited for the woman to finish the question as she stuck her hand out.
�Cirran. Theresa Cirran.� She studied Emily�s outstretched hand a few seconds before reaching out with her own. Her fingers were soft and warm as they clasped Emily�s. The pale of the younger girl�s hand stood in stark contrast to the dark of the older woman; a twig from a birch tree intertwined with a branch from an oak.
Theresa turned to the left and ushered Emily into the living room, her hips swaying widely with each step. There were a few pieces of furniture: a couch with matching loveseat, a low table with a few old issues of People magazine scattered across it, and a mantle above the fireplace on the other side of the room. On the chipped marble of the mantle were some old hardbound books, a tiny brass clock encased in a glass dome, and some framed and unframed pictures.
�When did you say you lived here?� She tucked the license into the front pocket and shuffled to the nearby loveseat, plopping down onto the olive and yellow flowered cushions. A small cloud of dust rose into the air around her head.
She didn�t notice.
Emily wrinkled her forehead, mentally counting the years on her fingers.
�I was almost seven when we sold the house. So I guess it was about twenty years ago.� She looked around the living room, debating about where she should sit. Theresa nodded her in the direction of the couch.
�Twenty years? That was your family my late husband Robert bought the house from? We�ve done a lot to it since then.� Theresa arched her eyebrow. �Why are you coming back now?�
�I honestly have no idea. I woke up this morning and felt the need to come here. I didn�t really stop long enough to question it.� She scooted to the edge of the cushion and leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. �Sorry about your husband,� she added. �My parents said he was a really nice man.�
Theresa looked at her and said nothing.
The phone rang in a distant part of the house; a shrill rapid beeping unlike anything Emily had ever heard. Theresa eased herself up and, after a long hard stare in the younger girl�s direction, began shuffling towards the sound.
Emily stood up and walked to the bottom of the stairwell, across from the front door. She looked at the twenty-one steps � it�s amazing what you remember when you�re not trying � and started to walk upstairs. The nagging voice in the back of her head reminded her of common courtesy, and the stare she had endured before Theresa had left for the phone. She went over to the mantle instead. �I�ll just ask to go upstairs when she comes back,� she said to the photographs propped against the dusty mirror.
One photo was definitely of Theresa, although it was probably taken thirty years ago. She was dressed in summer clothes-� jean shorts and a t-shirt� one arm curled around the waist of a tall man with red hair and blue eyes. He had a muscular build, according to the outline in the blue shirt, and the arm slung over Theresa�s shoulder was thick and bulky. Both were smiling. Two children stood in front � a little girl of three, and an older boy who was closer to ten. Mickey Mouse ears adorned their heads, and they were holding each other�s hands. They, too, were smiling, big grins showing off little pink tongues poking through the gaps in their teeth. All four were barefoot, their toes buried in the sand, the sparkling ocean not far behind them. I guess that�s Robert Emily mused. And those must be their kids. In Disneyland, apparently. She chuckled. What an interesting family.
She moved to the next picture, a wedding scene. The little boy in the first picture had grown into the man she was looking at now. He was dressed in a tuxedo, his leg poised above a silken handkerchief that hid a lumpy object. He had a yarmulke on the crown of his head. A blonde woman, no more than twenty-five, stood across from him in a beautiful white gown, her hands together in front of her chest, as if she was clapping, her mouth frozen open in a loud laugh. Emily pictured the wedding, the bride and groom shoving cake into their spouse�s waiting mouth, Theresa waltzing across the floor with her son. She looked closely at the photo, spotting a smiling Robert easily. He was at a table, one arm resting on the white tablecloth, his fingers barely touching the wineglass in front of him, and the other arm stretched over an empty white folding chair.
Theresa was not in the picture. Neither was the little girl.
The next few pictures were older, taken around the time of the first. The boy, bundled in a blue snowsuit on a sled, the little girl on a swing, her legs stick-straight in front of her body.
A loud voice interrupted her meandering, the tone familiar.
�Oh no, Charles, what�ve you done? My cookies, my cookies.� Emily heard a loud crash and hurried towards the commotion in the kitchen.
Cookies were everywhere, blackened bricks and crumbs speckling the cream-colored tile, a few still spinning in their place. The cookie pan was upside-down in the middle of the room, and Theresa was next to the sink, her wet hands flapping like chicken wings, the phone nestled between her shoulder and chin. Smoke was filling the large room, the air thick with the scent of charred baking.
�Emily?� John McDowell rushed from the kitchen to the basement, calling her name with each thudding step. �Emily?�
�Yes, daddy?� Emily stuck her head out of the playroom just as he was coming up the basement stairs.
�Oh, honey.� He picked her up and squeezed her for a second before tossing her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and running from the house.
He almost collided with Dave Traynor, good friend and neighborhood information center from down the street. This news would keep the gossips occupied for the next few months, or at least until Bill Jenkins from down the street was carted away for prostitution of his daughter.
Dave had happened to be out with his wife, Laurel, and their daughter, Susan, when the first moldy shingle had sparked. Laurel had grabbed Susan and run to their house on the corner, her shaking hands shielding curious eyes while Dave ran to the payphone across the street to call the fire department.
John passed Emily to Dave, yelling after the handoff, �take her to your place, the playground, I don�t care. I can�t let her see this.� Dave sprinted, the little girl hugged tightly to his chest. She was quiet, her round eyes staring at her father�s retreating back. Laurel and Susan came into sight, and he set Emily on the ground next to Susan�s sidewalk chalk before walking in front of his family and wrapping his arms around them in a bear hug. Laurel clutched at him, the pushed him in the direction of the house before turning back to Emily.
�C�mere.� She shifted her three-year-old to hear other hip and motioned for Emily to join Susan on her lap. Emily looked up from her drawing, a fat piece of pink chalk in her fist, and shook her head.
�Do you want anything to eat, honey? Some cookies? I just made some chocolate chip cookies, would you like some?� Susan looked up from the lap, not recognizing her mother�s strangled voice, but snuggled down into the armpit near her head when she was convinced her mom hadn�t changed. Emily shook her head again, and continued drawing stick figures and flowers.
Laurel placed Susan next to Emily and went into the house to pour herself a glass of bourbon.
Sirens started in the distance, their distinctive whine growing louder as they approached the building down the street. Emily stood up and watched the flashing red lights down the block. Firemen dressed in smudged yellow uniforms piled from the back of the truck, lifting ladders, gathering hoses, basically performing the typical duties of a fireman.
A loud caw from a nearby tree forced her gaze upwards, eventually alighting on the black cloud situated directly above her house. Its girth was increasing with each slight breeze, orange flames flickering in brightness and dancing like dervishes in and around the dark haze.
�Oh!� she exclaimed, her eyes rooted to the one cloud in the brilliant blue March sky. She started to walk towards her house, her feet stepping over cracks and around debris with considerable ease. At some point she stopped, unable to walk any further, and plopped down in the grass nearby. She did not see the neighbors with their fingers pointing towards the sky; she did not hear them whispering about that poor McDowell household, she did not feel them lifting her from the dry grass and carrying her to where her brother and parents were clumped on the sidewalk in front of the house. She did, however, smell the charred wood and plastic as it burned, and tasted ash in the air, the flaky black embers coating her throat and lungs with great gasps of dying memories. She did see her mother and older brother arrive home from a day of shopping with Kathy Sinclair, their next-door-neighbor, to find their house and almost every valuable possession burning faster than dynamite fuse in a roadrunner cartoon.
�My baby,� Veronica cooed to her daughter as she sat beside the young girl. Tears ran down her face in small rivulets before dropping onto her green velour shirt.
She didn�t bother to wipe them away.
Veronica opened her arms to her daughter and waited for Emily to climb into her lap and snuggle against the softness of her shirt, her head tucked beneath Veronica�s chin. Emily glanced at the open arms of her mother and leaned away, her fists clenched as they rested on the grass, her back yardstick-straight.
Veronica�s tears came faster.
Emily opened the two windows in the kitchen and waited for Theresa to get off the phone. She picked up a few cookie bits and looked around for a garbage can, instead opting to dump the crumbs onto the spread newspaper on the kitchen table.
�I have to go, Charles, I�ll call you later. No, I promise you, I�m in no danger right now. She�s here picking up the cookies I dropped because you had to go and burn a hole in my oven mitt last week� and didn�t bother to fix it or replace it.� A pause. �Yes, I will talk to you later and tell you everything.� She sighed. �Charles!� she barked, �I don�t need to listen to this. I told you before, I don�t feel like I�m in danger, and I will not stand you telling me to move away from the house I�ve lived in for twenty years because you don�t feel that I�m safe enough. The girl is harmless, and I will talk to you later�I promise�goodbye, Charles. I love you.� She hung up the phone and opened the cabinet under the sink to reveal a white plastic garbage can.
�Thank you for doing that. My son� that�s who I was talking to just now� cooked dinner last week, and left the oven mitt on one of the burners on the stove.� She smirked. �It was still on. You know, it�s funny, but you would think that with a medical degree and a thriving plastic surgery practice, he would have acquired some common sense. But not my boy. He has book smarts but not a lick of common sense.�
Emily glanced at the stout woman sweeping the floor. She dusted the newspaper off into the garbage and turned around.
�I�m sorry, I don�t mean to be rude, but I was just wondering why you think I�m harmless. I mean, I am, but how would you know that?�
Theresa chuckled and scooped the rest of the cookies into the dustpan.
�Well, besides the fact that I have your license with your name, birthday and home address on it, I finally remembered where I knew you from.�
�You knew me?�
�Why, yes. I don�t think I would have let you in otherwise. I just couldn�t place your name until I was on the phone with Charles.�
�Oh? And who did you figure me out to be?�
�You�re that artist I just read about in the New York Times Arts and Leisure section. You had a spread a few weeks ago about your work, right?� Emily blushed and nodded. �I didn�t make the connection that you were from that McDowell family until I saw the newspaper on the table.� She sat at the wooden table, her ankles crossed, her hands in her lap. Emily sat down across from her.
�That doesn�t mean that I�m harmless, though,� Emily persisted.
�Sure it does. I read your interview. You give money to people on the streets, buy them meals, things like that. You aren�t the type to rob or hurt me. Besides, you blush too much, and you�re much too shy to be a good thief. A good thief is aggressive so he can get what he wants and get out.�
�And how would you know how a good thief should act?�
Theresa winked and laughed. �Let�s just say, I�ve met my share of thieves, living in this neck of the woods.�
�I thought you told your son � Charles? � that you were perfectly safe here.�
�I am. I wasn�t always, but the thieves know well enough not to come near here now. I have the protection of the neighborhood police, all I�d have to do is press any of the red buttons around my house and they would come running. They take care of me, since I started the neighborhood crime watch around here.� She smiled, her eyes wistful. �I only wish I had started it sooner.�
�My daughter, Hannah, died almost seven years ago. Next month will mark the anniversary of her death, February third.� She stood up and put a teakettle on the stove. �Would you like some?�
Emily shook her head. �No thanks.�
Theresa nodded and sat down, continuing her story as she waited for the water to boil. �About ten years after I moved here, I was offered a job by a neighbor to work in a battered women�s shelter in New York. I accepted immediately. It was my first job since I had had the kids, and I was ecstatic that I would get a chance to help people every day. I figured that it would count as my daily mitzvahs for the next twenty or thirty years, whenever I retired. I was so eager to start that first day!� A bitter sigh. �I would have known, had I thought clearly, what this job would do to me. It sucked me of my energy, my love of life. After two years, I couldn�t bear going to work in the morning, but I wouldn�t quit. These women needed me. I couldn�t abandon that.�
The kettle whistled to announce the boiling water. Theresa got up and rummaged in various cabinets throughout the kitchen, retrieving honey, a tea bag, and a bright red mug with �I love Grandma� printed on the side in yellow. She spoke as she prepared the tea.
�At night I would come home and fall into the chair near the fireplace, not even bothering to remove my shoes. I stopped wanting to listen to my children discuss their day with me; their problems always seemed petty and trivial compared to the women I saw during the day, their cheekbones blue and swollen, arms in casts, stitches all over their bodies.� She sat down, the chair creaking under her weight. Emily nodded for her to continue. �I barely spoke to anyone during the three years I worked there. Not even Robert. I quit in the beginning of December, about six months into my third year. I was hoping to have a nice holiday with my family, talk a little with them, find out what was going on their lives.� An errant tear wound it�s way down to her mouth before she reached to brush it away.
�It�s funny the way it happened, really. You would think someone who dealt with abuse almost every day for over two years would be able to recognize the signs. She was coming home from school with bruises that she told me were from soccer practice. I believed her!� She became so quiet that Emily almost didn�t hear her repeat, �I believed her.�
�The bruises were not from soccer, or any other sport for that matter. They were from the boy she was dating at the time, a boy I had never even met. He was hitting my child, and she was lying to protect him. By the time I realized what was happening to my child, she was lying at the bottom of the stairs in his apartment building down the street. Her neck was broken.� Emily reached over to take Theresa�s free hand, her thumb rubbing across the back of the ebony-colored hand. Theresa looked at the thumb and sat mute, her mouth pursed as if to stifle an outburst.
�Where�� Emily began, when she realized Theresa had stopped talking. �Where was Robert in all of this? Shouldn�t he have done something to help Hannah? I can tell you feel responsible because she�s your daughter, but he was her father. Why didn�t he help her?�
Theresa shook her head. �He wasn�t much better than me. He�d come home from the site exhausted, and then head out to the bar to �be with the boys� as he called it. He never had to do that before I started working. After she died, I couldn�t complain to him about his never being around, because I really wasn�t either. Perhaps my body was, but . . . The only one really there for Hannah was Charles, but it�s no wonder he couldn�t do anything for her, �cause I didn�t listen to him either. � Her voice broke through the tissue covering her face, and the fibers absorbed the moisture as she cried. Emily withdrew another tissue from the box and held it out for her.
�Anyway, that�s why I started the neighborhood crime watch. He may not have been a thug on the street, robbing unsuspecting people or raping defenseless women, but he was a murderer all the same, and there was no way I would allow that to happen to someone else�s child. You know, I would trade everything I�ve done since her death for one more moment with her.�
Emily stood in the doorway of what was once her bedroom. Theresa had dismissed her from the kitchen, claiming the need to bake another batch of cookies, and reminding Emily of why she was there in the first place. Emily had been skeptical about the bright face that came so soon after the tears, but she guessed that the older woman needed a few moments to compose herself.
The shape of the room was as she remembered it, although the window seat she had recalled with fondness � complete with the hidden storage space beneath the cushion, where she hid all of her drawings and art supplies � had been replaced with a small terrace overlooking the backyard. The beige shag rug had been replaced by wall-to-wall forest green carpeting, whitewashed wicker cabinets stole the place of the orange and white specially made furniture of her youth.
Emily leaned against the pale blue paisley wallpaper and sighed. I don�t know why I came back here. This isn�t accomplishing anything. She walked to a window and watched the wind blow a few dead leaves in abstract patterns, swirling in tight circles as if they were about to disappear down the drain. The backyard was smaller than she remembered, but somehow more open. That�s it. The sandbox was gone.
�Sam, come over here, look at what I found!� Emily ran over to her best friend and grabbed her arm. She tugged her friend from the mud piles near the fence, half-dragging her towards the bright blue plastic tarp covering the sandbox.
�Em�ly! I was making a town over there. This�d better be good.� Sam crossed her arms in front of her chest and stamped her foot, splattering mud everywhere.
Emily giggled and brought her finger to her lips.
�Shhh. We don�t want to wake them.�
Sam lowered her voice to a very loud stage whisper and said, �wake who?�
Emily lifted a small corner of the tarp and peeked inside. She beckoned to Sam, pointing to the far corner of the sandbox where three kittens were huddled. They were shivering against one another, their mouths opening at alternate times to produce a chorus of piteous mews.
�Them.�
Sam giggled and clapped her hand over her mouth to keep quiet. She turned to whisper in Emily�s ear.
�They look like the three blind mice. You know that book you have in your room? �Cept without the sunglasses. Look, they can�t even open their eyes. What�s wrong with them?�
Emily shivered against the feeling of breath in her ear and stared into the blue eyes of her friend. �Nothing�s wrong with them! They�re perfect.� She lifted up the rest of the tarp from the sandbox and walked over to the kittens, picking up the black one with the bright white fur on the tip of its tail. She held it against her chest, the loose skin sliding easily over the thin, prominent bones; the heartbeat a rapid fluttering against her body, like a tiny butterfly trying to escape. She held the kitten to her face and stroked her cheek along the sleek and trembling side. Then Soot � she had named him when she first picked him up -� began to purr, a loud purr like an engine rumbling to life, inconsistent with his size, but fitting him all the same.
�Honey, we�ll find one in the morning. You need to go to bed now, or you won�t be able to get up in time for school tomorrow. And you know what happens then? You�ll miss show-and-tell. You don�t want to miss that, do you? Come on, get under the covers, munchkin. The sooner you get to sleep, the sooner you can wake up and pick out your picture.� He lifted Emily off of the covers and folded down the corner of her rainbow sheets.
�Please, daddy? It won�t take long, I can find one quick!� The petulant voice almost made John break his promise to Veronica. She knew John was more lenient with the children, but to ensure consistency in raising them, when one was out of town the other kept up the same practices. On more than one occasion, when John had volunteered to tuck Emily into bed, she had gone up to the room to find him passed out in the rocking chair, and Emily looking up from the floor and her artwork with an innocent expression on her face. As a result, she made a point of reminding him of Emily�s real bedtime before leaving on business trips.
John wavered, but somehow he knew his wife would find out, either from Emily bragging or nine-year-old Tim complaining of unfair treatment. He stood firm.
�I�m sorry Em, it�s bedtime. I promise, we�ll look for one in the morning.� His tone brooked no argument. She pouted and fell back onto her pillow, turning her back to him before curling into a tight ball. John sighed and kissed her on the forehead, pushing her brown hair behind her ear before she jerked away from him.
�Goodnight, sweetheart.�
She waited until he hit the loose step four stairs from the bottom, and ran across her room to the bathroom door across from her bed. She swung the door open, and turned the light on to allow an oblong rectangle of illumination across her floor. The hinges on her window seat creaked as she lifted it and she froze, her head cocked towards her door to listen whether her dad had heard and was coming up the stairs. All she heard was the rustling of the newspaper as he turned the page. Good.
She turned her attention back to the hidden artwork and lifted a few small stacks onto the floor. A few stray papers floated to the floor unnoticed. A hand snaked from underneath the papers to shut the lid, but her palms were slick with sweat and the lid slammed shut. Heavy footsteps started up the stairs, but she sat couldn�t get her legs to follow her silent pleas and run. Her father reached the first landing, and she finally managed to bolt to the bathroom to shut off the light before she turned on her toe and began running to her bed. She jumped to avoid the major pile that she knew was in the center of her floor, one foot landing on a smaller pile. The papers slid across one another, her arms starting to windmill as if she was standing on the loose gravel at the edge of a canyon. Her body lurched forward, the papers still sliding under her feet, the sharp corner of her bed rushing towards her face.
When she woke up, her white carpet was stained bright red and her father was kneeling beside her with a small clump of towels in his lap, a few stained the same color as the carpet. Her head hurt, the pain dull and achy in the center of her forehead. She reached up to rub her forehead to alleviate the throbbing, but her father restrained her hand next to her body, murmuring nonsensical words all the while. She looked at his other wrist with clear eyes devoid of tears. The wound looked like a second pair of lips, a whore�s lips, thick and red and puckering open to reveal gray that could have been teeth. He was pressing thick towels to stem the blood, occasionally rotating the towels when they were saturated.
�Oh munchkin, let�s go to the car. I think we need to take you to the hospital.�
Emily walked away from the window and sat on the wicker rocker in the center of the room, her feet pushing against the carpet. Her head dropped, her chin touching her chest. Only seven years here and I feel like I haven�t left. A lot of life could be packed into seven years. Memories were coming back, some faster, slapping her in the face with their realism, others slower, easing her into the past as though she was still seven.
She didn�t know anyone else was in the room until a light pressure on her arm brought her to the present. Theresa stood in front of her chair, the overhead light glinting off the Star of David that rested on top of the robe. She opened her arms and gathered Emily into a bear hug, her meaty arms covering Emily�s thin shoulders as they shook with sobs.
�Oh, honey.�