But in the doorway she caught sight of her reflection and felt another stab of guilt. “Bottoms up,” she whispered and then, seeing her own reflection and the glass lifted to her lips, she cringed. This wasn’t what she wanted for her life. For her daughter. “Stupid, stupid bitch!” The woman in the mirror seemed to laugh at her. Taunt her. Without thinking, Jennifer hurled her drink at her smirking reflection. The glass slammed into the mirror, shattering. Crraaack! Slowly, the mirror split, a spider web of flaws crawling over the slivered glass. Shards slipped into the sink. “Jesus!” What the hell have you done? She tried to pick up one of the larger pieces and sliced the tip of her finger, blood dripping from her hand, drizzling into the sink. Quickly she found a single, loose Band-Aid on the shelf in the cabinet. She had trouble as her fingers weren’t working as they should, but she managed to pull off the backing and wrap her index finger. Yet she couldn’t quite stanch the flow. Blood swelled beneath the tiny scrap of plastic and gauze. “Damn it all to hell,” she muttered and caught a glimpse of her face in one of the remaining jagged bits of mirror. “Seven years of bad luck,” she whispered, just as Nana Nichols had foretold when she’d broken her grandmother’s favorite looking glass at the age of three. “You’ll be cursed until you’re ten, Jenny, and who knows how much longer after that!” Nana, usually kind, had looked like a monster, all yellow teeth and bloodless lips twisted in disgust. But how right the old woman had been. Bad luck seemed to follow her around, even to this day. Spying her face, now distorted and cleaved in the shards of glass that remained, Jennifer saw herself as an old woman-a lonely old woman. God, what a day, she thought thickly. Heading for the broom and dustpan, she started downstairs, nearly stumbling on the landing. She caught herself, made her way to the first floor, and stepped into the laundry room.