46 trousers, combined with the central heating, were not enough to keep out the chill that had set in her bones. She could attempt to blame the atmosphere, but it was her. Her cardigan was grey, like the blanket and the skies outside her second-story window. The buildings she saw were grey, the streets were grey, the pigeons were grey, the people were grey. The plants on her windowsill resembled something that was once green—the strange, faded colour that her eyes might have been, were they not so dark and red from sorrow and lack of sleep. The ticking from her watch did not match the ticking of the clock on the wall and she was almost bothered. She reached up, taking a cheaply painted gold pin from her hair, and set it on the table in front of her with an echoing click. Running a hand through her hair, she tossed her head to put it behind her, debating whether or not to put it up. It was always in her eyes; she couldn’t tell if she minded anymore. The macaroni and cheese was nearly tasteless. Alice couldn’t tell if it was her tongue or the expiration date at fault, but it was hardly a culinary experience. When was food out of a box ever an experience anyway? She had never been much of a cook. She pushed the rest of the pan to Sam, almost laughing as she pictured the horrified look that would almost certainly cross her mother’s face if she saw that her dog was eating “people food” straight from the pot. Alice moved from her perch on a stool by the counter to sit next to him on the floor as she finished. When had she started to cry? She had kept her tears in for so long—the liquid army of grief had not yet been allowed to penetrate her eyes. There was a solid wall of composure that Alice had built, year after year, with her own hands. She could not, would not, let herself break. She had cried at the hospital as she held her only child in her arms, her screams muted by the beeping of monitors and the shouts of staff as the whole world came crashing down in room 222. She had cried enough for a lifetime: shouldn’t her eyes be dry? Nevertheless, tears rolled down her cheeks—the silent, passive kind that come when you are too tired to commit yourself to sobs. A tear dropped gracefully into the bowl of her spoon, and she contemplated it for a moment. Perhaps the tear would add salt to the cheese.
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