Anthony Merritt

Ice in a Glass

Z sat in a wire chair under an awning at a café table looking up at a second floor window across the small square. She was watching from behind sunglasses to see if anyone came to or from the door below, and if she could see shadows or light, in the apartment behind the window. It had been dark all day and stayed that way into the evening. Lights began to turn on in the streets, glowing warmly on the cobblestones and music slowly wandered out of café doors, as the evening hinted at night. A small group of girls returned, uniformed and in single file, from the movie house around the corner. The young women escorting the children, gently hushing and guiding their pigtailed wards up the stone stairs, and through the large rounded oak door to their dormitories. Z knew well what lay through the door. Sparse, clean, safe rooms. Cheerful in their obeyance of light, as it bent through the day, but without the sentiment of individual love. Z, absent of any parents she could remember, had grown up here under the purposeful care of the Sisters of Infinity.