Into Thin Air Read Online Free PDF

dreamless, and by the time the train finally pulled into the station, it was evening. She woke feverish, her dress pasted along her back. By now there must be a bulletin out for her, and she was more than aware that she hadn’t had as much leeway as she had wanted. The thing to do was rush and get another ticket, put more distance between her and her past, but as soon as her legs hit pavement, they buckled under her. She didn’t know what was going on. She had known about the bleeding, had known that her breasts might leak milk for a while, probably ruining every blouse she had, embarrassing her so much she’d take to wearing blouses three sizes too baggy. But she hadn’t expected fever, burning her up so that she was soaked, her vision smearing so she felt she was walking blind. She had cramps, too, thin high wires of pain that doubled her over so badly she thought she might be going into labor again. People were rushing to make connections, flinging themselves into sets of outstretched arms, and it was all Lee could do to sit on a dirty ledge and wait for enough energy to return to carry her to a ticket window. She put her head in her two hands, just for a moment, and as soon as her eyes were covered, she felt a touch. Startled, she turned toward it. A woman in a sleeveless black dress had her head cocked in concern. “Are you all right? Do you need me to get a porter?” the woman said. “I’m fine,” Lee said, forcing herself to stand, to walk as if she could go another ten miles without feeling a single cramp. “Well, you don’t look fine to me,” the woman called after her, vaguely annoyed. When Lee glanced around in back of her, the woman in black was still standing, watching silently, and when she spotted Lee looking at her, she waved energetically. Lee picked up her pace. She couldn’t travel if people were going to notice her, and illness was something you’d remember. For a moment she panicked again, and then she thought she could check into a motel, just for a night. She could get some aspirin; she could sleep, and as soon as she felt better she’d be gone.
    There was a drugstore right outside the station. She bought a family-size bottle of aspirins, extra-strength; she bought rubbing alcohol and a hot-water bottle. It made her anxious being in a crowded store like this, and she suddenly felt nervous, too, about checking into a motel that was only a state away from Maryland, She was on her way to the checkout counter, making her way up aisle four, when she grabbed up a small pair of sewing scissors, a new pair of dark glasses. Right at the counter was a whole stack of tabloids, WOMAN GIVES BIRTH TO KITTENS , it read. Underneath the headline was a blurred photograph of a woman sitting up in bed, holding something swaddled in blankets. Beside that was a drawing of kitten-faced babies, ARTIST’S DEPICTION , it said.
    She ended up at a Holiday Inn in town, prepaying the room so she could leave whenever she wanted. As soon as she walked into the room, she saw the TV, the cabinet so large it took up nearly a quarter of the wall. She didn’t have to turn it on, she told herself, she didn’t have to think about anything, and then she tumbled across the rose chintz bed and fell asleep, not waking until almost midnight. Her cramps seemed worse. She had this odd feeling that she was being punished, that all the pain was there to keep her from forgetting that back in Baltimore she had given birth to a daughter, that it was meant to work the way a splinter in your foot did, reminding you at every step. Next door she heard a couple arguing; something heavy thudded onto the floor. She heard a burst of applause from someone’s TV set. “Why, Mary Avery of Provo, Utah, you just won ten thousand dollars!” someone cried. “What are you going to do with all that cash?” She got up, riffling in her purse for loose bills for dinner later, for the