SWEET JESUS, DID Lois feel like shit. Hangover seemed like such an insufficient word for what she had. It suggested a sense of mild discomfort that could be dispelled by aspirin, water, and a greasy breakfast. This wasn’t that. No, what she had was an affliction. A full-on disability. Lois had slept deeply through the night—no surprise, since she vaguely remembered washing down several back-pain pills with wine yesterday. While she slept, she’d dreamed of loss, of ache, of big events forgotten until too late and important things misplaced. Daylight was an assault—a sharp stab between her eyes, a slithery uncoiling in her stomach. Every time her eyelids flitted open—from pain, anxiety, or her uneasy dreams expelling her from sleep—she immediately regretted it. Even the red-black static of the light through her closed eyelids was almost more than she could bear. For a time, she slung a forearm over them to block it out, but her own body heat began to make her queasy.
