The classroom at the end of the corridor was winding down. Chairs scraping. Lunch boxes being zipped. The usual chaos and the restless noise of six-year-olds being released from concentration.
Ms. Thompson stepped in ahead of me and pointed toward the window tables.
“There she is, Lily’s twin.”
I looked.
A girl sat at the far table, stuffing a crayon set into her backpack, her dark curls falling forward over her face. She tilted her head to one side as she worked. That specific angle and that particular tilt made my vision go strange at the edges.
A girl sat at the far table, stuffing a crayon set into her backpack.
The girl laughed at something the child beside her said, her whole face crinkling at the corners. The sound traveled across that classroom and landed directly in the center of my chest like something I hadn’t heard in three years.
“Ma’am?” Ms. Thompson’s voice came from somewhere far away. “Are you all right?”
The floor came up very fast. The last thing I saw before the lights went out was that little girl looking up, and for one impossible second, looking straight at me.
The floor came up very fast.
***
I woke up in a hospital room for the second time in three years.
John was standing near the window with his arms crossed, and Lily was beside him, clutching her backpack straps with both fists, watching me with wide, careful eyes.
“The school called,” John said. His voice was controlled in the way that means he’d been scared and had converted it to composure by the time I opened my eyes.
I pushed myself upright. “I saw her. John, I saw Ava.”
I woke up in a hospital room for the second time in three years.
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