House of Skin

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Although there were any number of beginnings to what came to pass, Lisa would later be certain that it began the night she left Chowchilla and picked up a rider.

It was one of those nights cribbed from a Gothic novel: a whipping, wind-driven rain was falling from the black, lonesome sky and lightning flashed on the horizon, limning the prison buildings in ghostly, strobing phosphorescence. Thunder roared and the wind screamed. She had felt the storm coming all day as she could feel her period sneaking up on her late in the month sometimes. This was Mother Nature’s menstrual cycle; this was how she cleansed herself. Not with a flow of blood but with an acrid fall of rain, an ozone stink of lightning, and a roar of thunder. Out with the bad and in with the good.

“Christ in Heaven,” Lisa said under her breath.

It was a bad one.

That was just great.

She had a big day ahead of her tomorrow and if the storm raged through the night, she’d get no sleep. It was an affliction she’d suffered with since childhood: a mortal fear of storms. Rain and wind filled her with a creeping sense of foreboding that was completely inexplicable. When a storm raged, she’d cower on the sofa, stare blindly at the Weather Channel, hoping for a sign of relief, an indication that the tempest would pass quickly. When it didn’t, she would start drinking cognac, the only liquor she could stomach for some reason. At first just in a glass with ice. Then, as her nerves frayed with every boom and flash and her reserve went to pieces with them, straight from the bottle.

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