23.
As Harper pulled onto her street, she noticed that no lights were on inside her mobile home. As always, hers was the only home on the block that was completely dark. As she drifted past the other mobile homes, she could see her neighbors passing by windows, hear their TVs, smell their cooking. Hers was the only lifeless one, an empty turtle shell. A useless womb.
It had been over six months since she’d last turned onto this street, expecting to see the lights beaming through her windows, Pony inside cooking up his famous mac and cheese casserole. Classical music vibrating the doorknob when she’d first touch it, the insistent notes tickling through her fingers instantly energizing her so that when she’d turn that knob and walk through the door after a long day under a heavy badge, she’d suddenly be happy and girlish. That was Pony’s magic, his alchemy.
Not anymore. Now she expected only darkness and her silent routine: feed Buddy and Mikey, stab the plastic covering so she could microwave her dinner, read a trashy novel in the tub, watch the late news, fall asleep sometime during Letterman’s Top Ten list, wake at 3 a.m. to dig under Mikey’s snoring body for the remote to shut the set off.
So this sudden cold ache of disappointment twisting in her stomach as she parked in her carport confused her. Was she disappointed because she was afraid Thomas Q wasn’t there? That her cave was still empty? She frowned at her own ridiculous speculation. If she was disappointed at his absence, it was only because then Rose wouldn’t know where to find him to arrest him. That’s why.
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