Paul, my lost brother.

Don't think about Paul. Not in public, not in the middle of the street. Wait till you're alone and other people can't see you cry. She walked faster.

But of course she knew where her feet were going. She stood in front of the cut-rate liquor store at Spruce and Fifth, the windows glittering with electric lights and bottles. The door opened and shut behind weekend shoppers, payday shoppers. Her own pay lay in her coat pocket, the bills folded as the teller had handed them to her. She touched them with her gloved hand. The paper was warm and soft.

One drink, she thought, to relax my nerves. Get everything nice and fuzzy, and maybe I can sleep. Maybe I can live through the weekend and go back to that creepy office on Monday. That would really be something. She went in.

For a moment, counting the money into the clerk's hand, she wished somebody would grab the bottle away from her and smash it. Wouldn't do any good, though. Connie had tried when she was sodden and sullen after a weekend of drinking. She could still hear the crash and see the spray of splintering glass from the edge of the sink, and remember the silence as she and Connie stood facing each other. She remembered swinging, half-blind with anger, and the feel of Connie's cheekbone under her hand. She had run out of the room then and gone to a cheap hotel, where she stayed drunk almost a week. When she came back the apartment was empty.

I wonder what she did with my clothes? Kate thought. And the twenty-dollar bill under the shelf paper, squirrelled away for a dry spell? Not that it makes any difference now.

She took the neat green-paper package and went out into the cold.

The sky was darkening when she reached the rooming house, its tall brick bulk softened by dusk. She had to live somewhere, and this was cheap. A rundown mansion made over into short-term shelter for stupid low-grade people—hillbillies, morons, drunks, misfits, failures. Illicit couples stayed there by the week, and there was an oily little man who never seemed to work: dope, maybe, or numbers. Nobody here gave a damn what you did, unless you made too much noise.

And who are you to be fussy, Kate Wood?

The downstairs hall was empty. On the table were a half a dozen pieces of mail, mostly bills and ads. Nothing for her. Who would write to her anyhow?

She plodded up two flights, holding her package carefully. The Osgood boy passed her on the landing, smiling unpleasantly. Still mad because she wouldn't let him in, and still hoping. He could drop dead.

As she stood in front of the door marked 3, fumbling in her pocket for the key, her new neighbor came running up the stairs. She was bundled into a shapeless loden coat, but her head was bare and mist glimmered in her short curls. She gave Kate a quick look. "I'm sorry, but what do you do when the key is lost? I knocked downstairs, but nobody answered."