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Show Motherlunge a novel 92 Walter came out of the house without a coat, wearing a thin white t-shirt and sweatpants, moccasin slippers. He kissed me on the cheek. "Thanks," he said to the side of my face. "Hello," Dorothy said. "Quite a drive." She smiled at Walter as if her face were made of heavy canvas. He kissed her on the forehead, and held her hand as we went up the sidewalk and into his house. He got her a glass of water while I lay down on the floor in his front room. "Quite a drive," I heard her say again from the kitchen. I heard the glass being put back on the counter. "I think I'll take a nap." Lying on the floor, looking at the screws on the underside of Walter's scarred coffee table, I listened to the floorboards squeak as my parents made their way down the hall. I heard the door to his bedroom stick, then open. I felt the floor jump when Walter threw something heavy off the bed -probably some books-to make room for her. Hypersomatosensitive after 120 hours in the car with my mother, I registered every < vibration in the house as if I had spun its frame out of my own abdomen. I knew when Dorothy had dropped her shoes and then was in bed, and when she turned over on her side and was going to stay there in that position. And then, with Walter's heavy footfalls coming back down the hall, I felt my spine relax. He came and stood over me. "I can't get down there, so you come up here. Let's have a smoke." He held out his hand to help me up. "You going up to her place tonight?" I sneezed from the floor dust as he pulled me to my feet. "No way," I said. Dorothy's house-my childhood home-was in a suburb on the edge of town, a development with a lighted sign at the entrance-Brookside, fluorescent-and consisting |