They took her over, mind and body. Her eyes went black. Against her will, she walked through the Victorian’s cardboard-box front door. At the end of a long, dark hall was a den: 14B. They were waiting for her there. Clara and her rosy-cheeked children, the man in the three-piece suit, Mrs. Parker and her tight dress, Marty Hearst and his shaking dukes, Evvie Waugh and his stolen cane, masked Mr. Galton. The rest of the tenants, too. All except Jayne. They parted like a splitting sea to reveal another door. It was built on a slant, and instead of cardboard, its frame was made of satinwood. She walked toward it like a bride meeting her groom, while on all sides, the tenants clapped.
Her family, unborn. How she hated them.
The door opened. Shining black eyes peered back at her, just as 14B’s ceiling buckled, and everything came crashing down.
Bam!
She jolted in her seat as the plane touched down into Eppley Airfield Tuesday evening. Rubbed her eyes. The dream fled from her, and she remembered only black rain, and a door.
One row over, Saraub peeked out at her, and waved. “We’re here!” he said.
She patted her thighs with corresponding hands at exactly the same time. Once, twice, three times, four. That wasn’t enough, so she went for five times, six times, lucky seven. “Yup,” she said. “We’re here.”
18
Sweet Air
As soon as they got their bags, they rented a white Camry and started the short drive from Omaha to Betty’s hospital in Lincoln. Since it was after five, visiting hours had ended at the hospital, so they didn’t rush. They took the long way through downtown, then west along Cornhusker Road.
After a few miles, they passed her old apartment building. She didn’t recognize it by sight, only by street address. Its white paint had chipped, and its tin cornices had rusted. The three-level boardinghouses that used to surround it had been converted into stucco efficiencies. Fold-out chairs with slashed leather seats and a broken red barbecue lay rusting in its front yard.
She slowed as she passed. Funny, she’d missed this place a lot when she first moved to New York. She’d imagined its black walls, and the days that had passed there without expectation. Now, she remembered hash exhaustion, the constant phone calls, always from the same person—Betty—and the loneliness of wind against a drafty house on a dark night. She’d grown so comfortable with those things that she’d mistaken this dump for happiness. Next to her, Saraub dozed. She didn’t wake him up to point the place out as they passed, or even look back.
The US 480 sign (which read “U 80”) directed her left, but habit guided her hand, and she turned right. The street looked like an empty strip mall: Appleby’s, Outback Steakhouse, Sizzler, IHOP. Between them were large tracts of land that couldn’t be traversed by foot, only car. Since she’d left, most of the dime stores and folksy diners serving cold cheese sandwiches had folded.
Audrey pulled into one of the lots, then took a fast, nervous breath like she’d swallowed something cold.
“Hey—Where are we?” Saraub yawned.
She peered through the tall glass windows that ran the length of the restaurant. Waitresses in blue uniforms and black shoes scurried to and from the heat-lamp counter in the kitchen while out-of-shape truckers ate breakfast for dinner. In the back was that blasted convection oven that had burned her hands into claws. She remembered the smell of the place—grease, boysenberry-flavored syrup, coffee. She’d been afraid of germs back then and had used a rag instead of her hands to lift dirty dishes. Tips she’d placed in her apron pocket, then washed her hands once or three times, but never twice. Unless Billy Epps took her out back and smoked her up. Then she relaxed. Of course, getting high had been part of the reason she’d burned herself.
“Is this your old job?” Saraub asked.
She nodded. They looked for a while. She didn’t turn off the ignition, even though her stomach growled, and buttermilk pancakes sounded pretty good. Instead, she pointed her chin at the white-and-blue-painted IHOP sign. “It doesn’t spin anymore. I wonder why.”
“Looks like its seen better days.”
“It has.” Audrey looked down at her fingers. The right hand was scarred worse than the left, but both were oversized for her body, like oven mitts. The first and only time Saraub had brought her home to his family, Sheila Ramesh had run her thumb and index finger along Audrey’s scabs while they