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She slept like the dead

PART THREE

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE DREAM was always the same:

It was Pandy’s birthday, and SondraBeth Schnoas there, her face pressed next to Pandy’s as they laughed in the flickering orangish light from the hundreds of birthday candles on Pandy’s cake

The dreahan clutched under her chin

Where was she?

She took in the gloohed She was in the den In Wallis Her book about Lady Wallis was dead, and now the boathouse had blown up Another great beginning to anothe

r fabulous day, she thought bitterly as she went into the kitchen

She filled the electric kettle and clicked it on She opened the cabinet, and, fro aficionados, reamot Earl Grey

Strong tea She had that tiny thread of Englishness in her bones that believed the right cup of teabetter, noa whiff of the still-burned strands of her hair, she realized that in this case, “the situation” was as si alive

And that has to be soht? she re In any case, for the first ti time, she was happy to feel her body It actually felt like a bonus, as opposed to a large steamer trunk

She sighed and dropped the tea bag into the garbage She was alive, but the boathouse was gone There had been an explosion The volunteer fireo on some website to report that she was dead Except, of course, she wasn’t

It was just like life, she thought, s came in threes

What’s next? she wondered, plopping down on the couch and absent out the knob on the TV As the old television sprang to life, Pandy gathered the afghan around her and wished she could go back to sleep