Chapter Twenty-EightLa li la, la li lo.
She could tell it was spring. She could smell it. She spent so much time in the dark that her senses other than sight had sharpened, and as she lay on the filthy mattress Valerie imagined she could smell the leaves of the trees unfurling, could smell the frogs hatching out in the pond, the bulbs cracking open underground and sending up fat green shoots—the flowers, of course: she could smell them opening as June approached and even the nights were no longer chilly.
La li la.
She had counted so carefully at first, as though knowing how many days she had been held captive would help her, keep her connected to her old life in some way. But about three years in, she had become despondent and stopped walking back and forth in the bunker, stopped counti
