Every time the door opens, I think it’s him and look up, holding my breath, expectant. I don’t even realize I do it until it’s not his voice that drifts back to where I sit in the kitchen, it’s not his face that smiles at me from the other side of the counter. Disappointment hollows out my chest, making me tired and bitter and weak. But he did say he was coming back, right?
Delia doesn’t say anything more about Coby—she sees the way my face falls as the day wears on and when she looks at me, she doesn’t have to say anything, it’s written in her eyes, in her bow-shaped lips. She watches silently as I clean out the closet beneath the stairs, change the oil in the lamp, change the sheets, take the mattress out in the back alley and beat out the dust and memories, all the hate McBane’s poured
