Wallflower Girl

Chapter 57

Anne walked around town, looking in windows and touching anything she remembered from her visit in nineteen sixty-eight. The market was all different. It was completely modernised with a new name and in no way resembled the shop where she had bought groceries to feed her husband. There was a shoe store where the butcher had been.

That night, Anne called her brother and her boss to tell them she would be another day there in Hammond. She got a room at the motel and cuddled up alone in bed, aching for the feel of a man. She wedged her clasped hands between her legs and sobbed into the pillow until sleep came. She then willed herself to dream, but nothing came from her tossing and staring at the ceiling throughout the night. Nothing but memories of Nick's hard, muscular body pressing her into the bed, of his arm, heavy with sleep, draped across her middle. Nothing had felt good like being in Nick's arms, and the thought of never touching him again brought fresh tears throughout the night.

It was barely seven in the morning when she was again parked at the gates with the big chain and rusted padlock. Maybe if I sit on the step again. She was done crying. She wanted so much to be able to go back, but had virtually convinced herself it had been nothing more than a dream.

The concrete was smooth and cool. There were four steps. She sat on the second one and laid her folded arms upon the fourth, which had her head resting against the burnt doorframe. There was nothing, so Anne closed her eyes, and suddenly she couldn't breathe. Her lungs burned, and she sat up coughing and choking for breath. She stagged back from the steps, shocked and horrified.