Free Songs of Willow Frost by Jamie Ford

cigarette smoke and body odors. As they passed a shared bathroom, William noticed a sign with a calendar nailed to the door instructing residents to avoid flushing during high tide because the toilet would back up. Lucky us. The tide is out .
    “It’s not so bad,” Charlotte said. “We can survive anything for one night.”
    William wasn’t so confident.
    “Besides, everyone knows that Blacks and Indians have it worse.”
    “You’re starting to sound like Sister Briganti,” William said, as he remembered the nun’s many baleful tales of the least among us . Stories of families sleeping in windowless rooms without heat or blankets. Where men with ripe sores on their legs and lice crawling their bodies drank homemade gin to stay warm.
    William shuddered at the thought. Then he found their room and he shuddered again. Room 17 had a single lightbulb that hung precariously from the ceiling. The walls were covered in graffiti and an assortment of salacious artworks, some drawn with pencil or ink, others carved into the wood. William heard a cat somewhere, wailing, probably at mice—or rats.
    “I know you must think this place is dreadful, and it probably is,” Charlotte said, “but it’ll be okay, William—it’s only temporary.”
    For the first time since he’d known Charlotte, William actually felt like he was the one living with a handicap, being sighted in a place like this.
    He barred the door and she took his hand, searching with her cane until she found their bunk. The bedding was nothing morethan a quilt of soiled, moth-eaten rags, so thin, so rough and foul-smelling that Charlotte peeled it back and shoved it in the corner. William broke out the bread and crackers, and they both nibbled on some of each. Then they huddled face-to-face on the squeaky bed with all of their clothes on, their hats too. They used their coats as blankets.
    “Are you still glad you came along?” William asked, apologetically.
    Charlotte removed her left mitten and slipped her hand into his, lacing their fingers together for warmth and comfort. “I haven’t been this happy in a long time. There’s not a place I’d rather be right now.”
    William still didn’t know what she had to be so joyful about.
    They sat in their tiny hovel, listening to the snoring, breathing, coughing, and the rhythmic squeaking of mattress springs somewhere in the basement.
    “We’ll find her, William. You have to feel it.”
    Of that he was fairly confident. But what if she doesn’t want me? he thought, keeping his fears to himself—bracing his heart for one final rejection. As the Moviola at the penny arcade faded into memory, as he strained to remember the show at the Moore Theatre, her image blurred and became warped, distorted by his feelings of abandonment. What if she doesn’t care?
    “My mother died when I was little,” Charlotte said. “But I remember her holding me—I remember feeling safe and happy and content. I didn’t even know that I couldn’t see; my whole world was nothing but those feelings.”
    She squeezed his hand.
    “What’s your earliest memory of your mother?” Charlotte asked. “The very first one?” She moved closer, their knees touching.
    William closed his eyes and tried to remember. Sounds came first, and then smells. “My earliest real memory,” he said, “is of lying on my back, staring up at the tin ceiling of what must have been ourapartment at the Bush Hotel. I was wet and warm from a bath in the kitchen sink, and the towels felt cold and rough against my bare skin. I remember my nose twitching from the scent of ammonia or detergent, and I couldn’t stop giggling and kicking my feet as my ah-ma cleaned my belly button with a Q-tip.”
    “That’s a sweet memory.”
    He smiled.
    “She would say in Chinese, ‘Don’t be a wiggle-worm.’ Whatever else she said to me I’ve forgotten, or lost, along with most of my Cantonese. And I remember hearing live music on the radio, and the window—it was