Carol tilted her head. “Then stop behaving like one.”
She pushed the sandwich through and stood. “There’s a blanket in the storage bin behind you. I’m not heartless.”
Then she climbed the stairs again.
Lily ate the sandwich because hunger had already sharpened inside her like a blade. She found the old fleece blanket half-stuffed behind a storage tote and pulled it beneath her knees. It smelled faintly like cedar and dust. She wrapped it around herself once the room cooled.
Above her, the house made its ordinary noises. Cabinet doors. Running water. A television murmuring. Once, much later, laughter from Carol’s phone drifting through the vents.
Normal sounds were the cruelest sounds.
They suggested that the world had not cracked open at all, only Lily.
The first night lasted forever.
At some point she slept in broken pockets, waking each time pain shot through her hip or her foot went numb. She dreamed of Sadie, the old yellow Lab, pressing her warm body against the side of the crate as if to apologize for it existing. When Lily woke in the dark, there was only metal and the smell of detergent and concrete.
The next morning Carol came down in workout clothes carrying a granola bar and a bottle of water.
Lily sat up too fast. “Please let me out. Please, I’ll do anything.”
Carol unscrewed the bottle cap, poured some into the plastic cup, and set the rest outside her reach.
