There is no pain, you are receding...
Jane walked into the room. The smell of lavender enveloped her. A glass vase held fresh cut flowers. Incense burned on a metal tray. Jane realized these were not meant to ward off bad spirits, but to cover the odor of shit and piss in the bucket by the window.
When I was a child, I had a fever...
There were only two windows in the small space, one facing the Victorian in the front, the other facing the house that was on the street behind them. Jane opened both, hoping the cross-breeze would alleviate some of the odor.
She stood in the middle of the room holding the peeled apple. She let the song play through to the guitar solo. She followed the notes in her head. Visualized her fingers on the strings. She had played guitar for a while, then the violin, cello, mandolin and, just for the sheer joy of it, a steel-stringed fiddle.
Then Martin had told her that she had to choose between being good at many things or perfect at one.
Jane lifted the needle from the record.
She heard them downstairs. First, Andrew’s coughing with its worrisome rattle. Nick’s pithy little asides. Quarter told them all to keep their voices down, but then Paula started another fucking pigs will pay diatribe that drowned them all out.
“Come now,” Nick spoke in a teasing tone. “We’re so close. Do you know how important we’re going to be when this is all over?”
When this is all over...
Jane put her hand to her stomach as she walked across the room.
Would this ever be over?
Could they go on after this? Could they bring a child into this world that they were trying to create? Was there really a flat waiting for them in Switzerland?
Jane reminded herself again: Nick had sold his furniture. Stripped away the fixtures in his apartment. He was sleeping on the floor. Was that a man who thought there was a future?
Was that a man who could be a father to their child?
Jane kneeled beside the bed.
She lowered her voice a few octaves, warning, “Don’t say a word.”
She pulled down the gag from the woman’s mouth.
Alexandra Maplecroft started screaming.