As Beth had stood on the cracked sidewalk that day, staring at it, imagining that this was where Amy had lived, she’d thought she could hear Amy’s voice whispering to her, telling her that she was right, that this was the place which had been her home.
Then she’d begun dreaming about Amy. The dreams came to her only when she was in the little room behind the stairs, and she wasn’t even sure they were really dreams, for she couldn’t remember being asleep when they came to her, nor could she remember waking up when they were over. Indeed, she decided that they weren’t dreams at all.
They were visions.
They were visits from Amy, who came to show her things, and tell her things.
She never talked to anyone about Amy’s visits. She’d learned by now not to talk about Amy to anyone. The one time she had, no one had believed her. And now everyone thought she was crazy.
Everyone, that is, except old Mrs. Sturgess, and Beth hadn’t seen her since the day after she’d gone to the hospital. Once Beth had gone back to visit her again, but the nurse had told her that there was a list of people who were allowed into the old woman’s room, and her name wasn’t on the list.
So Amy had become her secret, and it didn’t really matter to Beth anymore if old Mrs. Sturgess could prove that there had really been someone named Amy or not.
To Beth, Amy was as real as anyone else.
Amy was a part of her.
And then one day late in August, in the little room in the basement of the mill, she actually became Amy for a little while, saw what Amy saw, felt what she felt.
It was a particularly hot afternoon, but down there, in the darkness, it felt different. It felt cool, almost as if it were a perfect morning in spring. Beth spread the blanket out on the floor, then lowered herself down onto it, switched off the flashlight, and let the visit happen.…
It was the kind of spring morning Amy had long since learned to dread: the sun was shining brightly, and the air was warm even at a little before six. By ten, she knew, it would be getting hot, but there would be just enough breeze to make lying in the square and staring—daydreaming—up into the spreading maples the most alluring experience she could think of. And in the afternoon, when the heat reached its peak, and the air was getting so muggy that breathing was hard, there would be the stream, just a few yards away, its cool waters beckoning to her.
Yes, today was the kind of day she had come to dread, because for some reason, this kind of day never seemed to come on a Sunday, when she might have had at least a few minutes to enjoy it. On Sundays, even though she didn’t have to go to work, there was too much to do at home, taking care of her sisters and brothers, keeping out of her fathers way, helping her mother with all the things she never had time to do during the week.
Almost unconsciously, she slowed her pace, as if by taking a few more minutes now, she could put off the inevitable. But she knew it was impossible. As she turned off the railroad tracks to make her way up the path toward Prospect Street, and the shadow of the shoe mill blotted out the sunlight, she began steeling herself for the hours ahead. Long ago her mother had taught her the trick of survival in the mill. All you had to do was shut everything out, until the little room you worked in was your whole world, and nothing beyond that little room could enter your head at all. Then all you thought about was the work: cutting the little pieces of leather out of the tanned hides, making sure they were all exactly the same size, stacking them carefully but quickly in neat piles so that when they went to the assembly room upstairs the assemblers would have the right pieces at the right time. And you had to work fast, because you got paid by the piece.
You had to ignore the smells, too, or you’d quickly get sick and not be able to work at all. Sometimes Amy wondered which smells were the worst—the acrid odor of the lye used for tanning the hides, or the sour