Not Comin' Home to You by Lawrence Block

Author:Lawrence Block
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media Mystery & Thriller
Published: 2010-06-14T16:00:00+00:00

Ten

THE cabin was small and primitive. There was room for the double bed and the chest of drawers and not much more. The bathroom was in the same category of contradictions as green blackboards and plastic glasses. You couldn’t bathe in it. There was no tub, no shower, only a washbowl and a toilet. Drips from the two faucets had worn iron-red channels in the porcelain of the sink. There was no door to the bathroom, incredibly enough, and she kept having to use the toilet. She didn’t like doing this, not with him stretched out on the bed just a few yards away, but her bowels gave her no choice. She knew how fastidious he was and hoped he would not lose respect for her.

But he seemed completely oblivious. He was stretched out on his back with his eyes closed. He had taken off his clothes and the bedsheet covered him almost to the neck. His hands were outside of the sheet. She found herself frequently looking at his hands and arms, and it was as if they were disembodied, lying there on either side of a white cotton mound with which they had no real connection.

The cabin was one of a dozen just beyond Thedford, about a hundred and forty miles northwest of Grand Island. It had taken them two and a half hours to cover the distance, and she could barely remember the ride. There had been little in it to remember. He drove while she sat beside him. Neither of them talked much.

The interval between their violent lovemaking and the drive was blurred in her recollection in another way. She remembered the details well enough—going upstairs, putting things into a suitcase, pausing to comb her hair and wash her hands and face. Returning reluctantly to the first floor and trying to walk through the living room without looking at the bodies, but being unable to avoid staring at each in turn. She remembered all of this, and yet somehow there was a haze around her memory like thin clouds around the moon. Perhaps it was that she herself had been in a daze during that time, moving around and performing tasks but not really entirely there.

When she was ten a teacher had pushed a door open suddenly while she was walking past it, and the heavy oak had struck her with force in the temple. She was taken immediately to the school nurse, who had her lie down for a few moments, gave her the inevitable aspirin, peered curiously into her eyes and nose and ears, made her gag on a wooden tongue depressor, and at last pronounced her fit as a fiddle and sent her back to class. She remained in school that day until the final bell, participating in class exactly as she had always done. When school let out she walked home, had a glass of milk and a cookie, and went to her room to lie down. She slept for four hours,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.