On second thought, perhaps I'd better not start at the very beginning. Lizzy can't make herself think about it, and it would be unfair of me to use my supreme power as both author and narrator to make her.

Lizzy walks away from Owen, closing her mind's eye against the tempest of...memories. It hurts even more that there wasn't a tempest. Just a blink of an eye. A straw that was enough to break a bridge.

After what seems like an eternity, she opens the door to her house. It's silent and empty. Everything's packed into boxes, far too clean. It's too big a house for a little girl all alone, they all agree. Lizzy doesn't. She thinks that it's hypocritical of them to expect her to be an adult one moment, a child the next. She doesn't have the energy to argue, though.

She grabs the box she's looking for and takes it down the street to another house. She doesn't have a key to this one, but she knows the password for the automatic garage-door opener, and she sets down the box so she can type it in. 

"Hello, Lizzy. How was your day?" 

Lizzy shrugs. She doesn't want to sound ungrateful by telling the blunt truth to the person who's given her a place to stay and not be alone. At the same time, though, she's tired of lies.

"Is there any news on Mom?" Lizzy mumbles the words as a sort of formality. There's no news. If there had been any news, Mrs. Redgrave would have called her, even during school hours. 

"Her...condition hasn't changed, but the doctors are hopeful. They have a new solution."


The doctors are always hopeful.


They always have new solutions.


So far...


None.

Of.

Them.

Have. 

Done.

A.

Thing.