Rain didn’t fall that night so much as it pressed down, heavy as a hand that had forgotten how to comfort.
On the sidewalk across from the glowing entrance of the Williams Theater, two ten-year-old girls stood locked together like a single shivering shadow. Catherine Harper held Christine’s fingers so tightly their knuckles looked pale beneath grime and cold-swollen skin. Their hair hung in wet ropes. Their coats weren’t really coats, more like tired fabric with sleeves, patched and re-patched until even the patches had holes.
The theater across the street looked unreal, like a golden ship docked in the middle of the city. Light poured from its tall windows. People arrived in sleek cars and stepped onto a red carpet protected by an awning that kept it perfectly dry, as if the weather itself had been told, Not here. Not tonight.
Christine’s teeth chattered so hard her words came out bitten in half. “Catherine… I can’t… I can’t feel my hands anymore.”
Catherine didn’t answer right away because if she opened her mouth, she was afraid a sob would crawl out. She forced her voice into something steady, something that sounded like the older twin she technically was, by ten minutes and a thousand invisible years.
“Don’t close your eyes,” she whispered. “Just… don’t. We get inside. We make it. Okay?”
Christine tried to nod but her body shook too violently for anything as controlled as agreement.
The city moved around them like they were a crack in the sidewalk. People hurried past with collars up, shoes clicking, umbrellas blooming open. No one looked for long. Even sympathy had a schedule, and tonight it was booked.
Catherine stared at the theater doors. She could hear music escaping whenever they opened, the clean, soft sound of a piano warming up, notes stepping carefully along a scale like someone testing ice.
That sound threaded straight into Catherine’s ribs.
Christine heard it too. Her shaking slowed for one breath, as if her body remembered warmth by association.
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