The Impala sped up the interstate, now a comfortable three lanes wide, and on either side it was lit with neon – gas stations and hotels, furniture stores and fast-food restaurants. Groceries, hospitals, and huge buildings where the City of Big Shoulders still produced a huge amount of manufacturing wealth. Over the Kankakee and Des Plaines River, and then to an area she knew as well as she knew the cry of her child in the dark. A signal, a slide off of fifty-five and onto Weber Road…
Home. She stopped for a red light at the corner of Weber and Briarcliff, her turn signal clacking away in the dark car, and sniffled, roughly wiping away the tears that trickled down her cheeks. In the car-seat beside her, little Natasha made a small noise, her tiny body burrowing deeper into the blanket tuc
