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woman getting out of the car. I assume the older woman is Lynne's mother.

Sarah takes something out of David's hands and then David hits her. "Don't hit your sister," the
older woman says. I hear them pass through in the hallway, and there is no need to look through
that fisheye view because I already know who's passing by.

For David and Sarah I can only hope that no one gets in the way of their childhood. That no one
separates them and no one causes them to have a less than desirable childhood. That even if they
don't have what they want, they have what they need despite all the people around them who may
take more than what a single human being actually needs.

Chapter 30:
FRIENDS IN LOW PLACES

I'm walking down Chase street. If you walk down a certain street enough times, it will get so that
you remember what cars it parks, what trees it houses and what buildings it erects. I walk into the
grocery store and buy what I usually buy, and I notice they hired someone new.

I walk back out and there is that car again. The car I saw on my way to the store. I have never seen
it before on this street but it's nothing strange. Cars come and go. So do trees, and so do buildings.

I'm at the front door of my apartment building now, looking down at the life that Lynne and I had
created. These growing flowers, these peace lilies. That's when I see blood on the door handle. I
peer inside and it's almost as if I can see silence because the atmosphere looks so dead. I open the
door and walk inside slowly, and I see more blood on the ground. Not a lot. There's never a lot.

I go up the stairs slowly and when I get to the top, my heart stops. It's Kathleen laying on the
ground, no signs of life. I put down the groceries and I go up to her, but the muscle has died. It's
stopped pumping, stopped doing its one job, and because of this the entire body suffers. I think to
myself, why is there a trail of blood, I start to wonder if she fought off whoever did this. Then I
remember that Derek is still here, and the drug war he was telling me about.

I go into my apartment and look for him, but he is nowhere to be found. Maybe the blood was his.
I think that until I realize my backdoor is wide open, and there is no trail to be followed.

I call the police and tell them what has happened, and then I go back to the body. I go back to
Kathleen. A woman who I only knew though Joe, and I barely know Joe at best. I told her to stop
coming, not because it was for her own safety but because she was bothersome, and being
bothersome is what got her murdered by a blade that didn't even have her name on it. These stab
wounds.

I hear Lynne's door creak, and then I hear her voice. She's calling out my name but in a way that
appears as if she's asking me if I am who I am. Then she asks me if the ambulance had come yet. I
find out that she had already called the police, but she stayed inside her apartment because she is
terrified of dead people and that she didn't want the kids to come out and see it. I look at Joe's door,
and all I can think about is why mother's have to die so close to their sons.