Chapter 8: Peggy

Her feet were bare in the snow on the porch boards.

Her hair was flat on one side from the pillow.

She had both hands up on the glass, and her breath fogged it in quick little clouds.

"Peggy?" she said. "I don't know where I am. It's so cold."

I was on my feet before I knew I'd stood.

My hands were flat on the desk, and I couldn't make them let go.

An empty desk is an open door.

If I ran to her, every door in the hotel would open, and whatever was wearing my mother's face would walk right in.

That was what the man who wrote the card had told me.

"Peggy, please. Where's your father?"

I grabbed the house phone and pressed the button for 214.

It rang once.

"Hello?" said my mother's voice. "Margaret? Is everything all right?"

Her voice was clear and calm and wide awake.

My mother hadn't been able to find my name in a year.

"Mom," I said. "Stay in your room until morning."

"I heard knocking," she said. "I'm coming down, honey."

"No, Mom, stay where you..."

She'd already hung up.

Outside, the woman at the glass started to cry.

She cried the way my mother cried now, with her mouth open.

Then my mother came down the main stairs.

She had her cardigan on over her nightgown, buttoned right, every button.

Her hair was brushed.

She came straight to me behind the desk without holding the rail once.

"Margaret," she said. "Come away from the door. That's not me."