Wings

On the night of October thirteenth, I had a rather odd dream. I was watching an alien world. From what perspective I couldn’t quite tell. It was almost as though I were suspended in the air, or perhaps that I wasn’t even watching at all, that the events simply became known to me and a part of my memory as they happened.

The world was barren and rocky. I would have called it ashen, but that seemed a poor description, for the terrain was anything but monochrome. It was like being out west, if the canyons had met with the wrong end of a rainbow. There were vivid greens and reds and oranges. It was a wasteland, but it was all quite colorful. I remember seeing pools of deep purple saddled among the unidentifiable landmasses. Nothing seemed to make sense, and yet it all fit together quite beautifully.

Then the comet came. It was a ball of white hurtling towards the planet. It was almost painfully bright, and yet it was wonderful, like a beacon of hope. I watched, not with fear, but a sense of anxious anticipation as it sped towards the land. I knew it was a destructive force, but somehow that was a good thing. I don’t know how I knew it, how I could see it, I just did. It came streaking though the blackness of space, and it struck one of the colorful landmasses, not with a crash or an explosion, but with a sort of dull rustling.

It was then that I awoke, to be left only with the afterimage of the planet burned into my retinas, quickly fading from memory. I turned to face the darkened window. I don’t know why but I always wound up looking that way when I awoke, whether it was bright enough outside to see beyond its panes or not. I moved a stack of papers and notebooks until the harsh red LEDs of the alarm clock on my nightstand confessed that it was still only three in the morning.

I sighed, and normally would have laid back down and been asleep in an instant, but something kept me watching the window. Shortly wet flecks began to appear on it. The sky rumbled in the distance, a sound that despite my slumber, I registered had been occurring for some time.

A soft whine from the living room downstairs told me that while I didn’t feel any urinary urges at that hour, my housemate did. Still caught up in the impressions left by the dream, I hauled on a pair of pajama pants and a hoodie I’d cast on my desk chair the night before and wandered out of the bedroom.

I turned on the hall light and thudded lightly down the stairs to the expectant eyes of my greyhound Taro, who was staring at me rather pathetically from his enclosure. I opened the gate, and he hesitated, as though asking permission before skittering onto the tile of the kitchen and towards the front door.

By the time I grabbed an umbrella and followed him over, he was standing less than an inch away, as though a prolonged stare would entice it to do his bidding. To his delight it obliged when I turned the handle and let the two of us into the night air.

He seemed as enamored with the rain as I usually was, staring into the sky for a few seconds before heading into a particularly nice spot in the yard to relieve himself. I shivered as the wind picked up and rustled the chest-high hedges ringing the front and side yards of the townhouse, causing them to writhe and sway like a large green snake. I was rather shocked when a silhouette appeared from the end and paced steadily along the street in front of the drive I shared with the neighboring townhouse.

Taro, ever the watchman was not particularly inclined to care as he gave a halfhearted sniff while standing in the grass happily partaking in the weather. “Are you alright?” I called to the figure, who had almost disappeared behind the hedge that picked up on the other side of the driveway in my neighbor’s yard. For a moment I thought the figure, who couldn’t have been more than five feet tall was a child engaging in some sort of early morning rebellion.

They paused and started up the driveway towards me. I felt a rumble of uncertainty within myself and mother nature only served to magnify the feeling by sending a gust that rustled the hedges once more.

When they got closer I could see that the figure was not a child, but rather a diminutive young woman, only a few years shy of my own age of twenty five. She wore a black hoodie and a pair of rain soaked black jeans.

She looked up at me, and in doing so the hood slid off her short jet black hair. I didn’t know what to make of her sudden appearance and continued my silence; mercifully she chose to end it. “I go out every night…most nights,” she amended quickly. “I have for a while now, not much else to do.”

Her tone was very matter of fact and her face bore such seriousness that I wasn’t sure what to say. “Well, are you?” I could only sort of half mumble as Taro became rather amused by a toad. She zipped her wet hoodie up a little tighter and considered the words for a moment. I was rather taken aback, it seemed a fairly simple and straightforward question.

“Depends on your definition,” she answered after several seconds. I dug the hand not encumbered with the umbrella into one of my pockets and studied her. She didn’t seem the least bit disturbed by the weather, even though by the looks of things, she’d been in it longer than I had. She wasn’t even making any attempt to seek shelter under the umbrella or the overhang of the front porch even though she was a scant few feet away.

The only move she made that even signaled any feeling was to pull her hood back above her head, but somehow I got the feeling that the action wasn’t motivated by discomfort. It shielded her from the lone porch light casting a shadow over half of her face that made her even more intimidating, despite her petite stature.

“Well do you want to come inside and warm up a bit perhaps, where do you live anyways?” I rambled. Both thoughts had popped into my head at the same time and I’d tried to awkwardly fit them into the same sentence. I looked where I thought her eyes were and expectantly awaited her refusal.

She cocked her head to the side as if to consider the offer. After a few seconds she smirked slightly, an action that seemed oddly appropriate on her thin but inviting lips. “Ask me again,” she answered and left without another word. I wasn’t sure how to respond to that so I didn’t, instead staring at the two vertical lines of stitches on the back of her hoodie.

When she disappeared from sight and I snapped back to attention, I found Taro standing at my feet, tail wagging expectantly. A bit shaken, I let him inside, caged him and stumbled back up the stairs. As I had originally planned, within moments of hitting the bed I fell asleep.

***

I awoke some hours later without remembering any more from my dreams. The first had all but faded, and while I had impressions of others that followed, there was nothing concrete. I sat up in bed and stared out the window for a few moments. The sun shone in and cast a bisected rhombus on the bedroom floor. I wandered down the hall past the spare bedroom now serving as a makeshift office and quietly pattered down the stairs.

Taro was standing in his cage expectantly awaiting my appearance. When I rounded the corner, his tail gave a short wag and he looked towards the door. I obliged his bodily functions again by letting him out and stepped onto the front porch. The grass was still wet from the early morning rain as Taro wandered in chaotic circles.

As I looked out at the hedges, my thoughts drifted back to the visitor. I found that I couldn’t recall much about her features, only that she’d come and gone, and bits of the conversation that we’d had. I struggled to remember if those things had actually taken place, or if I had simply been dreaming the entire time.

I looked around for a few moments and noticed that the wooden porch, dry beneath the overhang still contained the remnants of two wet footprints. That answered one question it seemed, but raised others. Who was the young woman who’d been wandering about at three in the morning and what the hell was she doing? The yard and trees gave no answer, nor did Taro as he came sidling up looking particularly proud of himself.

After feeding the dog and pouring myself a glass of orange juice, I settled myself in front of the computer in the living room, checking the news. A half hour in, a notification popped up reminding me that I needed to go into the city to meet with an unemployment officer. I’d lost my job the previous month and the state needed to keep checking up on me to ensure that I deserved the money it handed out.

Not terribly happy to have to make the twenty minute drive, but grateful to see money continue to pour into my bank account, I hurried up the stairs to shower and dress. Within a half hour I had directions in hand, I’d said my goodbyes to Taro, and was backing out of the driveway.

After getting off the thru-way and into the city, the directions took me through a labyrinth of small streets into a corporate park where the state building sat. I went in, gave the officer the requisite speech about sending out resumes and job applications and was done in a little over an hour.

The journey home was not a simple reversal of the printed directions as I had hoped owing to several one way streets, and before long I was lost in a part of the city that made me a little uncomfortable. I drove slowly down a disheveled road filled with abandoned buildings and unsavory youth milling around looking for a road sign or some semblance of where I was. I came upon a four way stop and pulled off to the side, attempting to check the street names against the directions I had.

A hand, half covered by a dirty grey sleeve on my driver's side window made me jump. I was about to speed away when I recognized the demure grin of the girl I'd met in the darkness. I rolled down my window, unsure of what to say. Thankfully she started for me.

"Lost?" she asked in a tone I couldn't quite place. She pulled back and unzipped her hood to reveal the same disheveled mess of spiked black hair that I remembered from the night before.
"Actually yeah..." I trailed off, still a bit taken aback by her sudden reappearance. She rounded the front of my car, running her hand over the logo while I stared at the curious sight of her unzipped hood, laying in two halves over her shoulders.

A tap at the passenger-side door brought me out of my reverie. Without thinking, I unlocked it and let her in. Her slender legs, seemingly endless for someone of her size, slid into the car. She shut the door with a soft thud and looked at me for a second.

"Take a left here," she whispered softly, then settled back into the seat.

Not sure what to make of things, I did as she said, shifting the car into drive and pulling away. Finally my head concocted a sentence that didn't sound stupid or juvenile. "Do you have a name?" I asked her shortly, silently cursing the awkward tone with which the question escaped my lips.

"Rael," she said simply, flashing the same sad coy grin. "Ray-ell," she repeated upon noticing my confusion.

We drove on in near silence for a few moments, the only noise coming from her whispers as she pointed out directions. Before long the roads began to look friendlier and more familiar. "I had an unemployment meeting," I finally explained, "I lost my job a month ago."

"Nothing is permanent," she said softly, staring straight ahead. After a few seconds she turned to look at me. Her grey eyes seemed to stare straight through my head to the window on the other side.
"What were you doing wandering about at three in the morning. Do you live nearby?" I surprised myself at the sudden authority and confidence in my voice.

She smiled once again. "I live...around..." she said, and let the word hang in the air.

"Well I hope I continue to be able to live 'around,'" I answered her. "The bills keep mounting and the weekly checks are nice, but they aren't getting any bigger." It was true, while my accounts had been high at my termination, bills and living expenses had quickly caused them to dwindle in spite of what the state wanted to hand me.

"Nothing is permanent," she echoed, staring straight forward once again. "If you remember that, there is little that can happen that will shake you." I shuddered involuntarily. There was something about her voice, her soft speech that hit me like a sudden gust of cold air.

After a few minutes I pulled onto my street before I realized that I still had no idea where she lived. "Hey, where do you want to be dropped off?" I asked her.

"Here is fine," she said, looking up at my bedroom window as I pulled into the driveway. I followed her gaze but saw nothing out of the ordinary.
The two of us wordlessly stepped out and I stood there for a moment, staring over the roof of the car at the top of her head. Again the proper words seemed to have escaped me. "Do you want to come in?" It was the only thing I could think of to say.

She looked up at my window again for a moment. "Not today," she said simply and started to walk away.

"Another day then? When will I see you again?" I asked, hoping to attach some shred of permanence to the girl beyond an obscure name.

"In time," she said with a smile. "I'll be-"

"Around, right," I finished for her.

Just then, they sky opened without warning, soaking the yard once more. I cursed as the ink began to run on the stack of resumes I'd brought with me to the labor building. She was watching with some interest. Trying to play it off, I folded the five and tucked them under my arm. "Ah well, nothing's permanent, right?" I said with a shrug. Her lips broke into a grin as she turned, reapplied her hood and walked off.

***

The second night, I felt like I was in the same spot, though the dream was markedly different. I was floating out to sea, not floating in the water, but floating in the sky. It was dark, nighttime I could tell, but for me everything seemed to be illuminated. Off in the distance I could see a million tiny lights dotting the water. It reminded me of a scene from an old movie I couldn't place in which a ship crashed and the passengers escaped on a dozen tiny lifeboats.
However here there were thousands, maybe millions of twinkling little lights as far as I could see. Off in the other direction the clouds quickly approached. There was an unidentifiable dark mass heading towards the boats. I squinted, even though I had no eyes, trying to discern what it was. By the time I had it figured out, it was too late. The hurricane broke into the flotilla of rowboats like a leaf blower into a mound of dust.

It was a perverse kind of overkill as the ships were scattered in all directions. When the storm had passed through and disappeared over the horizon, there was no sign of the boats seen save for one battered and empty craft that more qualified as driftwood. An overwhelming sadness came over me as I spotted the ship. Distraught I made my way towards land.

What facilitated my travel, I do not know, but after what seemed like days, and could at most have only been several minutes, I spied a large island ahead. The shoreline seemed rather dark for sand, and when I got closer, I could see why. The thousands of tiny ships were all scattered across the beach, their oars sticking out of the sand like a thousand tiny flags.

Further inland, towards the city, I could hear the cacophony of a thousand voices. The people had survived, and any loss I felt at seeing the lone boat adrift was replaced by a powerful feeling of rightness, as though in spite of the miniscule tragedy, things had occurred exactly as they should.

A quiet whine woke me, and for a moment I was confused. Gone were the darkened walls of my bedroom, and I realized that I had fallen asleep on the couch. Taro lay wedged between me and the back, and squeaked to be let up. I plucked him from the crevice and set him softly on the floor, but the cries did not abate.

"I suppose you need to pee again," I said, wearily rising and heading towards the door. The clock hanging on the wall of the kitchen shone just past three and I wondered if I'd be seeing Rael again. Sure enough, after a few moments of watching Taro become significantly more interested in a patch of grass than I was, a petite figure strode out from behind the bushes.

She didn't look up, but turned and headed up the drive towards me, stopping a few feet short. She had on the same grey hoodie as she'd worn earlier in the day, and looked up at me expectantly.
"Strange dreams again," I said, stifling a yawn and looking at the darkened windows of the house across the street.

"Maybe they're strange for a reason," she said, reaching to address an itch on her back, just below the shoulders. "Some say they help us address some part of our subconscious, take things we refuse to deal with or accept, and repackage them in a way that we can. Some think they're indicative of what's happened to us in the past."

I nodded. "What do you think, do you ever dream?"
"I think they tell the future," she said with a coy grin, looking up from beneath her hood. I couldn't tell if she was being serious or not so I said nothing.

Taro wandered past the two of us and looked at the door, then at me, as if wondering why I hadn't already opened it. Rael looked at him, then at me with sorrow in her eyes, and I couldn't conjure the right words to probe the emotion.

"Will you come in?" I asked again.

She looked at me for a moment before shaking her head. "Not tonight," she answered, and walked off.

***

My alarm roused me from sleep the next morning. I turned it off and hauled myself from the bed, throwing on a pair of jeans and a button up shirt. There was a bag that had been sitting by my door for several days that I grabbed on my way down the stairs. After eating a quick bowl of cereal and allowing Taro to do his morning duties, I was in my car driving towards the city once more.

The Saturday morning sun glistened off the wet roads as I drove in silence. Unlike the previous day, I headed north into the University district, and parked in a weather beaten lot a block from a large imposing building that read Northern University Hospital.

The receptionist waved at me as I walked in, bag in hand, and started towards one of the upper floors. I hopped into one of the elevators with an older nurse named Matilda who watched over a cart full of equipment. She smiled warmly as she saw me and eyed the bag. "What do we have today?" she asked, peering in to check its contents.

"Mmm, they'll love those," she said happily, resuming her gaze towards the doors. "I swear, without you those kids would have nothing to play with but their pillows and bedpans," she giggled at the thought.

"There have been other contributors," I said, attempting to deflect some of the praise.

"Contributors is such a cold word, you've been so much more than that," she said. "You know what those kids face...or rather what most of them won't be able to face. It's good that someone like you is so willing to ignore the future so that the days they do are happy ones."

"Well, I don't know if I could handle it if I didn't push that thought from my mind. I can't imagine what it's like for my sister."

"How is her son doing?" Matilda asked as we stepped off the elevator and into the ward of the hospital reserved for children with terminal cancer.

"You know how it is. Brian was looking good for a few years, but the doctors fear it's come back. I don't know how much time he has left."

"Well my thoughts are with the three of you," Matilda said, pushing the tray down the hall.

I noticed a familiar figure standing by the windows of one of the rooms, and quietly approached. She wore loose white khakis, and a white hoodie. On the back there was a pair of wings and the phrase "you can't take the sky from me," a quote to an old TV show I couldn't quite place.

What's wrong with your sister's son?" Rael asked softly, not turning from the window.

"He has Neuroblastoma," I said, my voice heavy. "He's been treated for it ever since he was born, and it looked like it had disappeared, but there's always the chance of a relapse, and they think that's what has happened in the past year. Things aren't looking good."

She nodded looking at the young girl talking quietly to a small doll in the play-room of the ward. "You bring them toys," she said, noting the contents of the bag. "Very admirable. We all have a finite time on this planet, it's good that even they get to enjoy it."

I shifted uncomfortably. In visiting the hospital, death was something I'd become acquainted with, but that didn't make the verbalization of the fact any easier to hear or think about, especially living so close to it for many years. "Nothing is permanent, right?" It was the only thing I could think of to break the silence.

She nodded again and looked up at me. Her eyes were filled with tears. I wanted to ask about her presence in the ward, but the words seemed so out of place. All I could do was put a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. It seemed to work as her breathing grew more regular. She turned towards the window once more to watch the little girl.

"Do you think that things happen for a reason? Do you think that she's sick for a reason?" she asked finally.

"Are you asking if I believe in God?" I said.

"Do you?"

I thought about it for a moment, it was a question I'd fumbled around many times in years past until I felt I had reached an acceptable conclusion. I looked at the cross hanging above the window in the play room, glinting with reflected light. Rael stared at it as well. "I don't believe in that one," I said finally.

"I don't know if one exists that I could believe in, but I believe in reasons, in fate, and in a certain order to things. Maybe she's sick for a reason, maybe she's just sick, I don't know if life or death is that simple or that specific. But I believe there are things that do happen for a reason. I just don't know if we can ever tell which things those are." She nodded softly, taking time to digest the less than eloquent words I'd spoken.

I noticed that during our conversation her hand had come to rest on mine. Whether it was because she sought comfort, or because she thought I needed it, I couldn't tell. In the silence, I gripped her small hand tightly, hoping that the both of us received what we needed.

Shortly after, when word of my presence had spread, other children began to gather in the playroom, and I prepared to reveal the contents of the bag. Somewhere amongst the chaos, Rael wandered off.

***

The third night I was in a room, piled to the ceiling with all manner of things. There were volumes of books, stacks of newspaper, a multitude of athletic equipment, a dog dish, a piano, and thousands of other items. There seemed to be no sort of rhyme or reason to the place, things were just piled up wherever they would fit.

I studied a few of the books, realizing I'd read them, and wandered about the room, stepping onto, over, and between piles of junk. In the far corner there was a door, and a lone switch by that door. I guessed that it belonged to the solitary light hanging in the center of the room. It was the only source of illumination, and it did so somehow without casting any shadows.

As I got halfway to the door, it opened a few inches. A slender hand reached in and flicked the switch off, plunging the room into darkness.
I sat up in bed once again and stared out the window. For the first time in the past few nights it was not raining. I glided down the stairs, expecting Taro to be waiting for me, but he slept peacefully in his cage.

A knock at the door startled me and woke Taro. I crossed the distance quickly, wondering who would come calling at such a late hour, let alone have the guts to knock. Rael stood there on the porch, wearing the same stark white outfit she'd had on at the hospital.

"Can I come in?" she asked softly. She seemed to be almost crying.

I backed up, allowing her to step over the threshold into the townhouse. She took a few steps to her right and sat down at the kitchen table while I put on a pot of coffee. After watching it for a few moments, I joined her across the table. "So why take me up on the offer now? Lucky guess that I was awake."

She smiled sadly, "I felt it was time," she said simply. "Did the children like what you brought them?"

"Yeah, though I'm not sure the nurses were too thrilled. Still those Legos will keep them entertained far longer than anything else ever would."

"You did a good thing," she said, tightening her hood around herself. I wondered what it was that always made her cold. Granted it was fall, but the temperature had yet to drop terribly and create what I called "layers-weather."

"Will you meet me at the hospital tomorrow?" she asked me suddenly. "There's something I need to show you."

"You can't just tell me now?" I asked, my curiosity piqued. I tried to look her in the eyes but could not pierce the shadows cast by her hood.
She hesitated a moment before answering, and for a time, the ticking of the wall clock was the only thing that made any sort of sound. "No I need to show you," she said matter of factly.

"Fine, same time as yesterday?" She nodded in agreement and left without saying another word. Taro had fallen back asleep in his cage so I stumbled back up the stairs and went back to sleep.

***

The sliding doors whooshed shut behind me as I walked into the hospital. The receptionist didn't look up from her paperwork as I started towards the elevator. About halfway up, I realized that while we'd set a meeting time, we hadn't decided upon a meeting place.

Alone in the elevator, I pressed the button for the Children's floor and waited patiently. When the doors opened however, I found myself walking into surgery. I thought I saw Rael ahead, still wearing the stark white clothing from the day before and started after her. I called out, but she didn't acknowledge me, instead turning abruptly and heading through a door that said 'Authorized Personnel Only.' I looked around for a moment before following her through. She wandered down a long narrow hallway, up a short set of steps, and through another door. I raced through behind her, and nearly ran into the back of her as she'd stopped abruptly.

"Where the hell are we?" I asked, answering my own question as I looked around. There was a row of navy blue chairs, and a large glass window. It was an observation area for one of the surgery rooms. She took a seat and merely watched.

With nothing else to do, I sat down beside her, realizing for the first time that we weren't watching a surgery but an autopsy. One doctor was performing the procedure, reading off his findings while the other took notes. The chest cavity was stretched wide open, as was a part of the skull. I didn't have any practical knowledge, but something about that seemed to conflict with what I'd learned about autopsies from television.

"Have you determined the cause of death?" the scribe with the laptop asked gingerly.

The operating mortician let out a loud sigh and paused for a moment. He seemed to be summoning his strength. How long he'd been at work, I didn't know, but from the looks of things, it had been hours. "Fuck if I know," he muttered, putting down his utensils and moving on to the head.

"Who is it?" I asked her, "a friend?" The victim's head was turned to the side as the doctor probed the opening at the back of the skull. I rose out of my seat to get a better look, but the only person that could see the face was the doctor taking notes.

Impatiently, I sat back down and waited, watching the doctor's methodical work. Rael who had been silent mouthed two words. "Just watch."

Suddenly the mortician stopped. He leaned in to get a closer look at something, then paused again. The doctor with the laptop looked up, nearly shaking. "Why didn't you tell me he had cancer?" The nervous young doctor adjusted his glasses and looked at the medical file again.

"He doesn't...he didn't," he stammered.

"He damn well does," the mortician badgered. "I'm looking at a cancerous growth right now. A big one. It...it looks like it's been receding," he said probing once more.

"This man has no history of cancer?" The young doctor shook his head. "No history of surgery, chemotherapy, any sort of treatment whatsoever?" The doctor shook his head several times.

The older man grunted and put down his utensils, striding towards the door. "Someone needs to take a look at this, someone smarter than either of us. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear his body had been destroying the cancerous cells. On its own. And replacing them with healthy ones. Another year and there'd be nothing left."

"That's impossible," the younger doctor said evenly, somehow summoning an air of confidence.
The older doctor looked back towards the body. "I know," he whispered softly.

"I don't get it, who is this?" I asked Rael. She looked forward but said nothing. Tears were streaming down her face. "God damnit!" I said, frustrated with the lack of answers, the confusion I felt, the comprehension evident in everyone but me.

The younger doctor had set the computer down and was looking at the body with an air of reverence. He looked at the chart and read the name. "You might be the cure."

It took me a moment to register what had been said. He mouthed the name again. My name. I looked at the body on the table, the shape looked oddly familiar, the hair color all too similar to my own. For whatever reason the young physician turned the head of the body and I came face to face with myself.

I staggered backwards in shock, but Rael was there to catch me. "Shh," she whispered in my ear. Inexplicably the sound soothed me and I fell silent. "Do you believe things happen for a reason?" she asked once more. "That a word, a sentence, a footstep..." she gestured to the room below, "a death," all have a purpose?

I didn't move, I didn't know what to say. I swallowed hard and looked down at myself. For the first time the words that I'd heard began to have meaning. "The cure..." Rael nodded, she stood next to me, hands clasped in front of her. Something moved, brushed my shoulders and settled in behind her. I ignored it, still transfixed on my body.

"How long have I..."

"The hospital was the last time you saw me. After that, you never woke up again."

"What about Brian...now that I'm...will he?"
Rael looked forward for a moment. If I still had a heartbeat, I'd have felt it pounding in my chest. The possibility that my nephew's life might be measured in decades was almost too much to ask, even with the possibility laying right before me.

"It's still early..." she started "your end was...timely, he'll have a chance."

I let out a sigh of relief. Or at least I thought I did, I didn't even know what I was any more. I sat back in one of the chairs while Rael stood before me, still facing down into the room. Her head hung low, her shoulders slumped and her clothing now flashed a dismal grey. I thought I could see a faint outline of something on her back but when I blinked, it was gone. I could hardly concentrate. In dying I had accomplished more for the very people I wished to help than I ever had in life. Thousands of children would now have a chance at something that was only a dream.

"Adults too," she said, as if reading my mind. "Everyone, because of you. This time, there was a purpose."

I sat back in awe. Millions of lives, and all because I performed the simple task of dying.

"What killed me?" I asked out of simple curiosity.
She turned and looked at me remorsefully, the lighting in the room casting long shadows down her face. Against the stark light of the operating room her clothes appeared almost black. Her tear-filled eyes flitted to the ceiling before settling on mine. Her face was wrought with apology. Summoning a deep breath, she spoke softly again.

"I did."