Family
I'm not ten feet from the stoop when my foot runs aground on something unfamiliar and I stumble. I manage to keep my balance, but what's in the pot splashes into the snow. In the thin morning light, I stare at the snow and the yellow patch where the liquid is trickling into it. Something black lies beneath. I rub the spot with my foot. It's a boot—I recognize it as belonging to Albert Brooks.
An instant later, my mind registers this certainty: She is not of this world. My throat constricts, strangling my scream. The choking sound I manage is no more than a whimper. I yank my sleeping bag over my head and hold it tight. Maybe I pant a little in the utter black of my cocoon. What is she doing? The sweat oozing from every pore on my rigid body itches. Has she gone? I strain to hear something, anything, over the roar of my blood. I wait for a very long time.
