She came back to her bed and poured another drink. It didn't taste so bad now—didn't have any taste, really.

Paul. Do you ever wonder where I am, why I don't come and see you any more? Do you know the case worker told me not to come? Do you want me?

The pictures in her mind began to uncurl like an old movie film, deadly familiar through repetition. The print shop where she had worked for a year, weighing and cutting paper and correcting stupid copy for patent-medicine labels, to be within a bus ride of the state's prison. Tall windows thick with dust against which winter fog pressed; the men had been noisy but kind. The long jolting ride on the first Sunday of every month, with a magazine clutched in her cold hands and her eyes fixed on the passing landscape. The other women, defiant or ashamed, holding parcels—candy, cigarettes, magazines. Your eyes met with recognition, but you never spoke.

Then when they finally let you in and you could talk to Paul through the wire screen, there was nothing to say and he wasn't quite there. Anticlimax every time—but you never got used to it. God help me, she thought, starting to cry, it was a relief when they told me not to come. Still, I never missed a time. Did all I could.

And for nothing.

She refilled the plastic tumbler. Her hands shook, and some of the liquor spilled. She wiped it up, and then walked over to the rocking chair and sat down, holding her drink in both hands.

Some time later, remembering the unwashed cups, she started for the bathroom again. One slipped through her fingers and crashed on the linoleum. She stood for a minute looking at it, then kicked the pieces into a corner and went back to her chair.

Muscle coordination's getting funny, she thought wisely. Don't go out now. Somebody'll see me and think I've been drinking. Feet likely to get tangled up on this slippery floor.

Ahead was the dizzy black chasm that had to be crossed before she could drop down into black nothingness. Fearing it, her stomach cramping, her knees trembling, her palms slippery with sweat, she was yet committed to it. She was beginning to feel nauseated. She poured a small drink and carried it to the bed, walking carefully now because the floor seemed far away. Better to be in bed when you start feeling funny, she advised herself. She frowned, bending to put the bottle and glass under the edge of the bed, alongside her pack of cigarettes and little folder of matches. Too cold to pass out on the floor. It would be okay if she got pneumonia and died—but no, she wouldn't be that lucky, she'd wake up with a sore throat and a big doctor bill.

She lay back against the pillow, with tears running down her face.

She woke lost and scared in the middle of the night, and sat up in bed to light a cigarette. It was hard, because her hands shook and as always she was terrified of setting something on fire. She kept dropping the little matches and feeling around- in the sheets for them, not satisfied until she was sure they were cold. But the tobacco finally caught and she sat up in bed smoking, the tiny red glow reflected in the black window glass.