Peter corrected the T-shirt so it fell neatly around his waist and stepped back inside the booth. Marge was wrong. Living wasn’t waiting for the ice to form a scab around the edge of the lake knowing that when it’d completely sealed over, anything could reach you. The Returned had put an end to that kind of living, of just surviving, of just making it through. Now they had a chance to live. Peter sat with that idea for a little while when difficult thoughts of Cooper crept back in. Difficult thoughts followed difficult words. Not even a word. Just that one letter he’d banished to the back of the alphabet again. His throat became tight so he looked at the black slushy snow on the sidewalk outside the booth. It made the entrance seem dirty. A bucket of water would probably turn to ice if he tried to sluice it away, so Peter had a look inside the alcove beneath the cash register and found a cloth for the window instead.

It took some effort to remove the clump of old gum on the base of the chair, but eventually he got that off. Bits of food stuck inside the register fell away with a good shake too and eventually the booth was as clean as it could possibly be without washing the curtains or stitching the piece of ragged carpet beneath the base of the chair, torn by too much friction. Peter shuffled in the chair and swivelled around. He didn’t manage to complete a full circle so he pushed off with a heavier shove and it spun all the way around. He was about to have another go when he noticed that one of the rippling light bulbs underneath the canopy had bust. He stared at the bulb and the bulb stared back. How annoying. There was probably a spare one and a ladder somewhere inside the theatre, but he thought better of wandering off to look for one and instead angled the chair so the bulb no longer caught his peripheral vision.

An hour passed before anyone walked by. But the old lady in the trapper hat wasn’t on her way to the movies and walked directly in front of the ticket booth without even noticing Peter sitting there. He lifted his fist to the window to say hello.