The Kindness of Strangers

  ***

  The next morning, Pam decided that she had to do something about the bags. She could leave them at the local police station, and send the girl there if she ever showed up. There was something about their presence that was distinctly unsettling, like an itch that couldn’t be scratched. She had felt the same way the day she met her future husband, although that had been an itch of an entirely different nature. Archie. What a mistake he had been.

  “Stupid old woman! All the more reason to get them out of the house!” She went over to the hall table to fetch her car keys. Pam caught sight of herself in the hallway mirror. Good Lord, she thought, who are you? Turning to face her reflection, she brought her hand up to touch her face. Her dry, papery skin felt as fragile as butterfly wings and her thin lips had settled in a permanent downward curve. She tried pulling them upwards to approximate a smile, but the effect was horrible. She hadn’t seen the inside of a hair salon in years and so she just twisted her hair into a bun on top of her head where it sat, like an upturned bird’s nest, pinned into submission.

  “Pamela, my dear, what are we going to do with you?” she whispered.

  The woman in the mirror didn’t answer.