Untitled.

Beyond the wire hanger curtain of her closetful of clothes, beyond stacks of old and out-of-season shoes, beyond a hidden stash of letters from two boyfriends ago, beyond that imperfect blend of order and dissonance she felt the slick cool of white house paint with the palm of her hand. She pushed and pushed and wondered if it might, someday, give way, not to the next room, but to the inevitable reality that seemed to sleep between the walls of that house: she was beautiful, obedient, well-kempt, and the oldest unmarried woman in three counties.
Later, they would find her there, legs splayed awkwardly to reveal control-top hose in ivory nude, eyes pushed back into shadow by painkillers, hair more disheveled than anyone had ever seen in, beneath not one but a hundred or more small, greasy handprints, gray impressions of varying intensity that seemed only to beg to be let out.