297

There was no warning.  The front door exploded inside with the force of the battering ram held by the two police officers on the front stoop.  A stream of black-clad officers flowed into the house, spilling into every room.  Amber had been drawing upstairs when she heard the splintering boom and felt the house shake.  As the men were shouting directions and updates to one another, Amber scrambled into her closet, pushing aside clothes and climbing the shelves like a monkey.  She shimmed up the last bit, bare feet pressing one side of the closet, her back bracing on the other, as she shoved the attic hatch open with her head and fingertips.  Amber climbed inside and slid the wood square back into place.  Wasting no time, she scuttled on her hands and knees across the loose plywood over the floor joists, past the tubs of Christmas decorations, the boxes of old tax documents, and the black plastic bags with baby clothes and forgotten linens.  She could hear the men shouting on the second floor now, and she kept pushing further back to the far corner where she knew there was a hidden door behind more boxes, even older than the rest.

296

Of all the lies movies have taught me over the years, I think the worst is that I believed that I could do anything in a reasonable amount of time.  I didn't think that I could do it within the space of a movie--that's ridiculous--but I did believe the movie time suggestion that within my lifetime I could accomplish goals.  Lies.  Dirty, rotten lies.

My days are spent on a treadmill.  My brain, on the shortest treadmill of them all.  Repetition, repetition, repetition.  Nothing accomplished.  Dishes pile up again and again.  Laundry.  Mail.  Shower.  Eat.  Sleep.  Dentist and doctor and optometrist appointments.  Repeat.  Holidays.  Repeat.  The things I dreamed of doing remained out of my grasp for the daily repetition.  My brain rehashed what it wanted and wondered why the hell wasn't I making progress?  I should have accomplished by now!  Where had the time gone?  Why couldn't I get motivated?  Why couldn't I get out of welding to accomplish my dream of being a professional dancer?  What happened to making the band and winning the hearts of millions?  Shouldn't I be able to save Christmas, or teach the town to dance or preserve the human race?  Goddamn movies.  Lies.

295

After rolling over and flipping her pillow for the fourth time, Sara gave it up as a bad job and got out of bed.  She had the feeling that important life was happening without her.  Spending wakeful hours in bed only made her retread the same worn paths to frustration, so she wrapped herself in her comforter and went to her window.

It was unlikely that there would be any activity out on her street.  Sara lived in a quiet suburb, and the sidewalks were rolled up by 9:00 pm, but she couldn't shake that feeling that there was some spark of life just outside her sphere.  Her dresser sat under the window, and if she pushed it back slightly, she could sit, her feet on the baseboard heat, and lean her elbows on the windowsill to look outside.  Despite the cold November night air, she cranked open one casement window and arranged her comforter over her head.  The baseboard heat rose and filled her cocoon while the night chilled her nose and cheeks.

The street was predictably dark and no lights on in the three houses she could see; it was, after all, after two in the morning.  Sara sat and dreamed with her eyes open of adventure.

294

The city streets were quieter than anyone could ever remember hearing them.  It was impossible to tell how many people were in their homes this evening because the lights were out and all the curtains drawn.  Lights normally powered by the city hadn't been on in more than a year, but when the sun went down, no one else put their lights on, either; it was easier this way.  There had been warnings, first on television, then announced in the streets, then with the short-lived sirens, to turn off lights.  People obeyed once a quarter of their city had been bombed into oblivion.  The sirens stopped working after just a week, but by then everyone knew not to light the dark.  Lights became targets.  Targets became rubble.

293

Their teacher's biggest secret was that she hated people.  She hated having to teach because she had to interact with people.  She hated smiling at people.  She hated thinking of other people.  She hating having to worry about other people.  Miss Declan hated people, but her students never knew it.  Even when she told them, they didn't believe her because she'd smile and help them get their work done, and they improved over the semester.  They would write her good reviews and say how much she cared for them, but secretly: she hated people.

Miss Declan wished for nothing more than to go home and be quiet.  Talking all day made her hate the sound of her own voice.  She worried about her students all the time, and it made her ill.  She hated her own brain for making her think of them.  What Miss Declan wanted was a job where she didn't have to talk to, or plan for, or care about other people.

292

She yearned to go dancing.  Not the kind of dancing most men would think, but the kind of dancing where you mostly get to jump and fling your hair and scream.  The kind of dancing where you shove your fellow dancers and bond by bruising your shoulders.  The kind of dancing where you're sweaty and your clothes come loose and your makeup runs and you need to drink, but you don't notice because you're freaking dancing.

Dee couldn't think of a way to tell him, and her insides did a slow burn that dimmed and dimmed, but never quite went out.

291

Not for the first time and not for the last time, Della looked at the back of Jeral's head, grey curls bobbing as he loped along the forest path ahead of her, and wondered what he was thinking.  It was getting on toward dusk, and the last light was draining the colors away.  The stars would wink on in the sky and the black would spread until she felt blindfolded by the dark.  Della hoped Jeral had a plan, and not asking him about it meant she could at least pretend he did.