White As A Bedroom Door

by Nathaniel Lee

The story she tells most often is not about any one person. In the story, Amber is a little girl, maybe five years old. She is sitting on her bed, in a darkened bedroom. The covers are thin, sometimes damp where she wet them. She smells sour sweat and urine, old cigarette smoke, spilled alcohol. The smells of home, as she thinks of them. They are almost comforting.

What isn’t comforting is the door.