Her mother drops her off at school and none of their eyes meet as she exits the car and trudges into the dreary building.
Hours later, her mother will retrieve her once again and their eyes will evade each other again.
"What color are anyone's eyes?" the girl wonders.
They sit at a red light. A crow plucks a morsel from the street in front of them. A French fry, an empty wrapper, a crushed rat.
Every night her mother closes the girl's bedroom window. She turns the lock and fits the wooden dowel between the window and its frame. She closes the curtains. She sets rocks along the window sill, along the edge of the curtain fabric as if she can staple it down. She tucks in the girl while the girl pretends to sleep. She pushes the fabric underneath her daughter as if she can staple her down. She leaves the room, but even from here, from her bed, the girl can hear her mother's silent and motionless sobs.
Each night the girl unstaples herself from her sheets. She goes to the window and removes the rocks one by one and piles them quietly on the floor. She pushes the curtains aside. She removes the wooden dowel. She opens the lock. She ever so quietly presses her hands up against the edge of the window pane and gives it a shove. The night air strikes her skin and she dives back into her bed, her sheets dangling dangerously loose. There, she will stare at the ceiling until the darkness comes one peck at a time. In the morning she will awake again with new eyes.
13