The Cold Nowhere

35

Dory slid her naked body into the bathtub until the scalding water reached her chin. Her skin felt like flame. She gripped the porcelain sides of the tub and endured the heat as sweat poured down her face. When she inhaled, moist steam coated her nose and throat. She kept the lights off in the tiny Seaway bathroom, and there were no windows to the outside. She liked to bathe in the dark. When she was there, she could have been anywhere. A fine hotel. A cruise ship. A house of her own. Not a flophouse toilet.

She pushed her fingers around the edge of the tub until she found a wafer of soap. She extended her arm and ran the soap along her skin, making it slippery. She did her other arm, then her legs, her breasts, her stomach, and her mound. Touching herself brought no arousal. Her desires were long dead.

The water slowly cooled as she lay there. She shivered. She wished Michaela were here with her, so they could talk. So she could explain. In the darkness, she imagined that she could hear the sound of her sister breathing. Her soft laugh. The rustle of her clothes.

‘I betrayed you, bonita,’ Dory murmured to the dark room.

Her sister spoke.

‘You? You could never do that.’

Dory was silent. She couldn’t say it, not even to a ghost. The secret was toxic. She’d confessed to Margot, and now Margot was gone, as if the truth were a deadly virus, killing everyone it touched. She half-wondered if it was Marty. Even dead, he was still destroying lives. Controlling those he hated. Wreaking havoc.

‘I wanted to tell you back then, bonita, but I was too ashamed. And then it was too late. You were gone.’

‘Tell me now, and I will forgive you.’

‘No. You won’t.’

‘Where I am now, there is nothing but forgiveness.’

‘No.’

Dory stood up, dripping water from her body into the tub like rain. She found the towel she’d draped over the sink and used it to dry herself. She stepped out onto the cold floor. Her face brushed the string hanging from the light fixture and she pulled it, squinting at the harshness of the bare bulb. She was alone. Michaela wasn’t there. When she looked down, she saw a millipede crawling near her toes. She kicked at it with her foot, and the bug slithered through the scummy grill of the floor drain.

She stepped into the same panties she’d removed before her bath. She pulled on her jeans and shrugged into a sweater that was scratchy on her bare skin. The leather of her boots was cold. Fully dressed, the fringes of her hair damp, she sat down on the edge of the bathtub.

She’d thought that telling Margot would ease her conscience. When they’d met for dinner at the Duluth Grill, she’d blurted out her secret. She’d told her everything. What she’d done. Why. Her shame, her guilt. Margot hadn’t been surprised at all, not one little bit. Like it made all the sense in the world. Like it was the key to a lock.

For Dory, her confession hadn’t changed anything. All she could think about were ways to wipe her mind clean.

She exited the bathroom into the hallway. It was empty, except for one old man, unconscious and smelly, sprawled in an open doorway. After a while, you didn’t even notice. You held your nose and stepped over them. There was no one else, just him and her. Mornings were quiet here, because everyone was sleeping off the nights.

Dory made her way down the hall. She had the last room, near the window, where gray light streamed from outside. All the doors around her were closed. She reached for the door handle to her apartment, but she stopped without touching it. She didn’t even know why she stopped.

She heard her sister whispering in her head, like a warning. ‘Don’t go inside.’

Dory took a soft step backward and held her breath. Her room was as silent as a church. Beside her, through the hall window, she could see the alley below her. Papers whipped along the street, pushed by a lake wind. That was the problem. Silence. When she went to take her bath, she’d left her bedroom window open to clear out the smoke. She heard no breeze moving about the room now. The window was closed.

Someone was inside, waiting for her.

She backed up from her door. She avoided the drunk in the hall. She passed the bathroom again, moving through the warm steam. She kept going backwards, and when she reached the stairwell, she finally turned around and ran.

In the lobby, she hugged herself and hurried onto Superior Street. She didn’t wait to see if anyone came through the doors behind her. She ignored the greeting from the blind beggar in the lawn chair. She dodged traffic and ran toward the bank across the street and then sprinted when she was out of sight of the building behind her. Behind the bank, she cut into a pothole-filled parking lot and zigzagged through the cars. She crossed Michigan Street and found herself in the dead fields under the freeway. The car tires over her head sounded like stinging wasps.

She kept running. She didn’t look back until she was lost among the railroad tracks near the harbor and she was finally safe. She had no idea where to go, but she knew what she had to do.

She had to tell Cat the truth. And then she had to disappear for ever.