For about an hour she’d been watching a spider crawling overhead, making an elaborate web from the boards in the ceiling to a light fixture that was covered in dust and threatening to succumb to gravity’s pull any day now. The hard summer light that came in to the room highlighted the silken strands and the jet black body of the spider, making the arachnid look like a droplet of mobile black blood on filaments of silver hair. Andrea was chilled to the bone by that thought and tore her eyes away from the busy insect. She looked out of the hole in the wall, noting that the sun was about to begin slipping below the horizon. Once more, she pushed thoughts of the bar out of her mind. The past is done with, and there’s nothing you can do to change it, Andrea, she told herself, putting a hand under her bangs and running a finger across her forehead. Stop worrying about yesterday, set your sights on today and tomorrow. She allowed herself a small smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Tony had told her that every day since she was seven years old.
