The springs came down against my back. I could feel the weight of her
through about eight inches of foam.
I flattened myself against the floor and stopped breathing properly, and the whole thing turned in about four seconds from a joke into something else.
A lighter clicked.
And then cigarette smoke came drifting down under the bed.Grayson had told me his mother gave up in 2016. He had told me that story twice, with a detail about a hypnotist.
But in that moment I was not thinking about the lie.
I was thinking about the call she made next.
She said: hello, Grayson? I’m in the bridal suite. Where’s your wife?
And she put him on speaker, because she is sixty and that is what she does with every call.
