Emilia was cold. She didn’t quite remember getting off the train, but at least she now recognized some stores and was relieved she’d somehow known enough to head in the right direction, toward her house.
There’s Kmart, where Ma got me those boots, she thought as she also realized she was still a far walk from home and it would be dark soon. Her feet felt numb. And she was scared.
Maybe I should call home for Ma or Tomás. Or Ian—he’ll come.
There was a pay phone up ahead. Emilia reached in her pocket for a quarter, but the money she thought she had, that she remembered bringing with her, wasn’t there.
She had bought things at the stoop sale, hadn’t she? Had she used all her money? She looked for the change purse she remembered grabbing. Maybe there was a quarter in it.
But she found no items, no money, nothing.
Emilia felt confused but kept walking.
She wondered if Carl Smith had been in his home. Was he at the hospital or was he right inside that house, dying? She should have asked the man outside. She imagined the conversation.
Do you know Carl Smith?
Yes, he’s my brother.
I heard that he’s not well.
No, he’s not.
Is he inside? Can I see him?
What would the man have said? Emilia imagined the look he might give her, the same confused look he gave her when she didn’t understand what he was saying to her.
Can I?
I suppose.
Emilia pictured the scene in her head.
Then what? Would I walk up those steps? Would I go into that house, that house that must smell like him? Where he lived, and breathed, and sat, doing what? Thinking of that day? Remembering?
She imagined herself going up the steps. Pushing open the front door. A television set would be on. The kitchen light, too. And stairs, leading to a bedroom she knew held Carl Smith. Dying.
Fear and anxiety fluttered wildly in Emilia’s chest and she took a deep, heaving breath. Let it out slowly.
She kept walking and felt the world slipping away as she continued, as she became numb with cold.
In her mind she saw his bedroom door, open just a little bit. From it came those smells she remembered from the hospital. And she stood just outside. All she had to do was peek in, and look at his face.
The man who attacked you, Carl Smith, not Jeremy Lance, is just beyond that door.
She could smell his diseased body. It turned her stomach. She felt the cold wrap itself around her ankles, tightening, and then Emilia felt like she was falling.
Emilia felt herself being dragged away from the door—Look at his face first!—and the image became darker and farther away as she felt herself floundering, wanting to fly.
Emilia lunged forward, trying to reach the disappearing door. And suddenly the world whirled back into view.
A car horn blared and Emilia jumped back. The driver yelled at her as he drove by and pointed at the lit-up DON’T WALK sign. Emilia looked at it, and then at her surroundings, realizing she’d walked well past the turn to get to her house. Now she was just two blocks from the school.
She looked in its direction and thought of her glittering birds. Of that room. The sign ahead changed and flashed.
WALK.
FLY.
WALK.
FLY.
Emilia ran across the street and headed toward the school.