J. Patrick Lemarr

An Open Hand

The tenement door had worn at least a dozen coats of paint in its protracted lifetime, half of which were visible where the years had slowly flaked it away. The hallway, stiflingly hot and thick with the scent of cigarette smoke, was pocked with primer where the landlord had attempted to cover graffiti. Somewhere down the hall, a baby cried—its tone blending with a police siren so well that Conner Marquand struggled to tell where one began and the other ended.