Free Sleep Toward Heaven by Amanda Eyre Ward Page B

opened the front door. The edge of the heat had faded now that the sun had set, and she began to walk briskly. Eventually Franny came upon an old apartment building that had been converted into a motel, the Gatestown Motor Inn. She sighed. It looked as if the market for housing visitors to the prison was growing faster than Gatestown’s population.
    She walked into the lobby, and the smell of cigarette smoke raised her hopes that there was a bar. At the front desk, an old lady sat knitting.
    “Is there a bar in this motel?” asked Franny.
    The woman looked up. “There’s a lounge,” she said, pointing to a frosted-glass door.
    The air in the lounge was smoky and wet. A woman in a muumuu played piano, a martini balanced on the piano bench beside her. A few men in suits drunkenly watched Franny as she walked in. She sat on an orange barstool.
    “Can I help you?” The bartender was young, blond, skinny. His nametag said, “Hello! I’m FRED.”
    “Scotch on the rocks,” said Franny.
    Fred poured the drink. “You in town long?” he said.
    “Yes,” said Franny.
    “Here for the execution?” He said this in the same blasé tone, and Franny looked up at him. He pointed to the men at the other tables. “That’s why they’re all here. The Hairdresser of Death.”
    “Sorry?”
    “You don’t know about her?” Fred pulled a newspaper out from under the bar. He folded it back to show a grainy picture of a tired-looking woman. “Killed her whole family,” said Fred.
    “Wow.”
    “That’s nothing. We’ve got some real sickos up there.” Franny didn’t answer, didn’t even nod. She wanted the bartender to be quiet. “I’m gonna be a prison guard,” he said. He was a type familiar to Franny. She had gone to school with dozens of beefy boys who were likely guards now. It was one of the few jobs in town. Franny played with her cocktail napkin, and calculated how fast she could finish her drink and leave. Ten minutes, she thought, maybe five. “You okay, lady?” said Fred. Franny nodded. She drained the Scotch and pulled a five from her wallet. As she made her way out of the bar, the piano player sang, “I get no kick from champagne!”
    Back at the house, the phone was ringing. Franny picked it up. “Honey?” said Nat. “How is he?”
    “He’s dead.”
    “Oh God, Fran. I’m getting the next plane.”
    “No,” said Franny.
    “What do you mean? You need me.”
    “Nat, I don’t want you.” Franny said the words without even thinking, but once they were spoken, she realized they were true.
    “What?”
    “I don’t want you…here. I don’t want it. I’m sorry.”
    There was a silence. “I’m going to let you go now,” said Nat, his voice even with anger. “I’m very sorry about your Uncle Jack, and I’m going to call you tomorrow.”
    “Goodbye,” said Franny, and she hung up the phone and pulled the plug from the wall.
    She walked up the stairs again and paused at the door of Uncle Jack’s room. There was the bed she had once climbed into when she was scared or lonely. There was a time when she had been terrified of an imaginary group of people who would come at night and lock everyone in their basements. One night, in Uncle Jack’s bed again, Franny had told him about her terrible fear. “Baby Doll,” he had said, his hand on her head, pushing her hair behind her ears, “we don’t have a basement.” In that moment, Franny had known that he could save the world.
    She walked down the hall to her old bedroom, and lay down, staring at the ceiling. The crack had been repaired, but there was still a water stain in the left corner. She began to remember her last conversation with Uncle Jack. He had called on a Sunday a few months ago, and she had been running out the door to taste wedding cakes with Nat. “I just want to know how things are going, Baby Doll,” Uncle Jack had said. “It gets lonely here, nighttimes. I’d like a nice long chat one of these days.”
    “I’ll call