But Mimi had never crossed his threshold. When she did, it felt
like something he'd been missing there had been finally found.
She looked around with a hint of a smile on her puffed lips. She ran her
fingers over the cast-iron gas range he'd restored, caressing the
bakelite knobs. She peered at the titles of the books in the kitchen
bookcases, over the honey wood of the mismatched chairs and the
smoothed-over scars of the big, simple table.
"Come into the living room," Alan said. "I'll get you an ice pack."
She let him guide her by the elbow, then crossed decisively to the
windows and drew the curtains, bringing on twilight. He moved aside his
piles of clothes and stacked up the suitcases in a corner.
"Going somewhere?"
"To see my family," he said. She smiled and her lip cracked anew,
dripping a single dark droplet of blood onto the gleaming wood of the
floor, where it beaded like water on wax paper.
"Home again, home again, jiggety jig," she said. Her nearly closed eye
was bright and it darted around the room, taking in shelves, fireplace,
chairs, clothes.
"I'll get you that ice pack," he said. As he went back into the kitchen,
he heard her walking around in the living room, and he remembered the
first time he'd met her, of walking around her living room and thinking
about slipping a VCD into his pocket.
He found her halfway up the staircase with one of the shallow
bric-a-brac cabinets open before her.
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