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Back A Small Affair Save as PDF
Chapters (54)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise
  3. Dedication
  4. About the Author
  5. Part One
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. 7
  13. 8
  14. 9
  15. 10
  16. 11
  17. 12
  18. 13
  19. 14
  20. 15
  21. Part Two
  22. 1
  23. 2
  24. 3
  25. 4
  26. 5
  27. 6
  28. 7
  29. 8
  30. 9
  31. 10
  32. 11
  33. 12
  34. 13
  35. 14
  36. 15
  37. 16
  38. 17
  39. 18
  40. 19
  41. Part Three
  42. 1
  43. 2
  44. 3
  45. 4
  46. 5
  47. 6
  48. 7
  49. 8
  50. 9
  51. 10
  52. EPILOGUE
  53. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  54. Booklist

I wondered if he’d follow me. But when I looked back there was no one there, only the dingy walls of the station, someone using quarters to purchase a new MetroCard. I sighed and stepped onto the arriving train, leaving the night behind me.

14

Present day

I find Hamano’s hair everywhere. On my vanity, in the corners of my bedroom, silky strands in even stranger places, like my windowsill. I vacuum it all up, sage the apartment—at the end of the day, I am my mother’s daughter. Quinn yells at me to open a window. The woman downstairs with the loudest dog stops in her tracks when she sees me, as if I’m an apparition. I move past her, a swift ghost haunting her.

I missed this apartment. The sunny windows in the living room, the way one flame on the stove never comes on. The ugly light fixtures and the dust collecting on the spines of the books on our giant shelf. I missed Quinn and the way he whistles in the shower and the smell of his organic laundry detergent and the coasters he uses on the already protected living room table.

It’s good to be home. And after one day of it, we’re going to the West Village for the ceremony, and I wake up drenched in sweat, moisture slicking the backs of my knees, the nape of my neck, panting out a few breaths. Tom was in my dream. He was there, at the ceremony, and he came up to me, he kissed me, loud and smacking, and the sound, it echoed across the room. And then he devoured me whole, bits of my flesh spitting out of his wet lips as he chomped down. It hurt. It hurt in the dream, even though you’re not supposed to feel pain in them. And maybe I wanted to hurt, like she did, venom choking her into unconsciousness, into death.

I take time in the shower, conditioning the ends of my hair, staring at the water spiraling down the drain, imagining blood making the water red, her blood. And then there is blood and I realize I have my period, that it’s come early, and it dawns on me, not for the first time, that Odilie will never have bodily fluids again, that adolescent Penelope will never know if her mother would influence her to love or to hate what she sees in the mirror.