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stay in the room Brenda had fixed for me. I was afraid of being permanently dependent on Richard. What if he tired of me? Where else could I go? How would I live until I could work again?
    Sorting the pamphlets according to size, I set them in orderly piles and deposited them back in the envelope.
    Aha, denial! Just as the manual predicted.
    No, damn it. I had a choice—to just sit back and let life happen to me, or take my best shot at rebuilding a life. It would never be the same, but maybe that was for the best. The past five years held few memories worth taking out and polishing fondly anyway.
    I stood too quickly, my vision suddenly dimming.
    A spiraling abyss sucked me in—sickening me, shattering my new-found resolve.
     
    The deer hung before my wide-awake eyes, swaying slightly in some unfelt breeze, its tawny hair catching the incandescent light from the lone bulb that lit the room. The cloying smell of sweet blood filled my nostrils. Then a voice in slow-mo repeated like a mantra, “Youprickyouprickyouprick—”
     
    The chandelier’s bright light was back.
    I swallowed, nearly falling into my chair again. The muscles in my arms quivered in reaction. Moon-shaped grooves marred my palms where my fingernails had dug in.
    If the dream could overtake me during my waking hours, I could be doomed to a life in the places described in the pamphlets I’d so cavalierly discarded only moments before.
     

CHAPTER 4
     
    A white Bekins truck pulled up in front of the house at ten the next morning—a bright moment on an overcast day in mid-March. Before we left Manhattan, Richard had arranged for everything I owned to be packed and delivered. The arrival of my personal possessions was a tangible connection to my former life. A life where I’d been in control, responsible.
    Brenda and I watched from inside the house as Richard directed the men to unload the cartons in the sun porch.
    “I’ll make coffee,” Brenda offered, as Richard handed me the inventory.
    I rested the pages on my cast, flipping through them with my good hand. Clothes, books, dishes, linens, various pieces of furniture. Obviously missing were items of quick cash value: my stereo equipment, binoculars, TV, personal computer, Nikon—and my gun. The guys who’d mugged me had taken my wallet and keys, then ransacked my place. The cops found fingerprints, but nothing would come of it in a city where scores of muggings or robberies happened daily.
    My excitement vanished as I, a former insurance investigator, remembered I’d stupidly let my renter’s insurance lapse. I’d had to let a lot lapse during six months of unemployment. Goddamn downsizing.
    Richard watched me carefully, his eyes filled with pity. “Why don’t we get that coffee?”
    He clapped me on the shoulder and headed for the kitchen. I didn’t follow. Instead, I waited until the last of the cartons were off the truck and the men started unloading the furniture.
    My stomach lurched as two men in overalls struggled down the ramp with the shabby couch. Spray-painted Day-Glo orange stripes crisscrossed the back and cushions. The dressers, end tables, and every other piece of furniture were likewise marked. The movers stacked it all in the garage, save for the bed. I had that moved to Curtis’s—my—room. Maybe steel wool and elbow grease would remove the paint.
    The movers finished in record time. Richard appeared at the appropriate moment, opened his wallet, and gave them a generous tip; then the big empty truck lumbered back toward Main Street.
    “You want help unpacking?”
    “Uh . . . maybe Brenda could give me a hand.” I didn’t want Richard to see all my crap—and that’s just what it was—in the glaring light of day.
    “You sure you won’t have some lunch?” Brenda asked as she approached.
    I shook my head, trying to pull loose the tape on the top of a box of underwear. Her fingernails were longer than mine and she easily worked one underneath, pulling the tape off.