25
I leave Father’s unspeakably decrepit apartment building like a summer storm, full of churning blackness and threatening lightning with every yard I cover, stretching my pace but refusing to run. Inexorable. I want to make good time. It’s not that I want to make Will struggle to haul his flabby carcass down the busted-up sidewalk.
Unlike a real storm, I can’t clear the cloying summer humidity out of the air. A suggestion of a breeze taunts with the implication that it could be strong enough to refresh me if only I deserved it. The sun glares down like a heat lamp.
I wipe my face like I’m brushing away sweat, not treacherous tears.
The three women are still gossiping on the stoop of the tenement a dozen yards away, but the brownstone past theirs has attracted four underfed teenage bo
