Page 147 of Exposé

This is some kind of a cruel joke.

The playground sat off to the side, its metal slide abandoned, the swing broken and hanging.

"Higher, Mom."

"If you go any higher, you'll touch the stars."

I walked inside as the memory lambasted my sensibilities, my feet like lead holding to a magnet. Pushing open the doors, I climbed the stairs with hunched shoulders and glanced around the interior, which held so many memories.

Cigarette smoke clung to the air, mixed with mildew and mold climbing up the walls.

How is this legal?

Is this how it was when we lived here?

Television conversations droned through the swollen wooden doors along with a woman's distant, raised voice.

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It's here.

I stopped at the door with the rusted brass numbers hanging crooked in the middle of the door, the number three tipped upside down.

I'm here.

No harm.

I can do this.

My fingers curled into a fist, and I knocked.

I waited a moment, then pressed my ear against the door.

Cold seeped into my ear lobe, and the sound of silence beat against my eardrum.

They aren't home?

Or were they ever?

My hand slid down the door and wrapped around the handle, giving it a slight twist.

A quick sigh of defeat brushed my lips as the knob jerked to a stop.

Of course it wouldn't be that easy.

I darted a look down the hall.

Empty.

If only I'd learned how to pick a lock.

Stepping away from the door, I hung my head and picked my brain rather than the lock, then walked down the stairs as an idea formed like expanding foam.

Down the two flights of stairs, I pulled open the door and stepped inside.

The office was a utilitarian square, functional but uninspired. The walls, once white, now bore a yellowish tinge from years of nicotine sticks. A desk occupied the center, its surface an operational disaster zone of pens, papers, and a battered landline phone. Behind it, a filing cabinet leaned against the wall, its drawers marked with faded labels, the tape curling atthe edges. Light filtered through a fogged window, casting a grayish hue over the room, while a torn blind hung askew.

Martha, a seventy-seven-year-old woman, sat at the cluttered desk, her head turned to watch a soap opera playing on the box TV balanced on what used to be a welcome table crowded with brochures.

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