Assuming that you one day become a parent, what one thing do you hope to teach your children?

I am shadowed by the ghost of my unconceived daughter.  She was never born, nor even a glimmering.  There was no opportunity, nor time enough, nor even retrospect opportunity.  She wasn't, except in my wishes for myself and for her.  Her name is Alaura.  She is my daughter who never was.  She missed all that I would teach her, and I missed all that she would give me.  My body is unchanged, except by time.  My legacy is mine and mine alone.  I will not create life to remember me.  I am only here to remember.  And I remember my daughter who never was.

If you had amnesia and were granted only one thing to write down from your memory, what would you write?

I'm not positive my grandmother knew who I was, but she always smiled and patted my hands just like she used to, so I don't think it mattered.  My mother didn't like to visit the nursing home.  She had a phobia about any hospital-like place combined with an acute sense of smell, so Mom was always dancing on her toes, edging towards the exit whenever we visited.  Gram was always nice.  Always friendly.  Always.  Except in my mother's tales of her childhood.  I wondered if that's the way it always went: time mellows all.

Gram was in the hallway, lined up against the wall with three other old people in their wheelchairs, too.  At least, in the wheelchairs of the moment.  Nothing is permanent in a nursing home.  Nobody owns anything exclusively.  The clothing you came with finds it way to other people, and you appear dressed in a sweater you never saw before, but, of course, in this ward, it didn't matter.  Nobody remembered.  Not only wheelchairs and clothing, but glasses and even teeth traveled.  Nothing, especially memory, was permanent.

I knelt by Gram's chair to be at eye level and let her know I was there.  I knew we wouldn't stay long as Mom already had her hand over her nose.  The other old people in the chairs made noises and looked in our general direction.  "Hi, Gram, it's June."

Gram turned her dark brown eyes, ringed with the blue of age, and smiled, her front tooth missing.  That was new.  Gram's hands were still strong and, even now, warmer than mine.  "So cold!"  Maybe not even remembering I was her granddaughter, Gram still chafed my hands in hers to warm them.

"You look good, Gram," I smiled.  She did.  They'd given her a haircut that she'd never chosen, but that suited her.  Nobody in a nursing home got the perm or color they used to get.

Gram looked down at my arms across the afghan in her lap and said, "You're so white!"

"Yeah, I know," I said.  "It runs in the family."

If you had nothing in life but a three-inch piece of string, what would you do with that piece of string and why?

It was Hera's last walk-through of the house she and Frank had shared for the past four years.  Her last chance to pick up what remained of hers, if anything.  She had been moving out for months before she even told Frank she was leaving.  He took it stoically, but he took everything that way.  Four years wasn't that long, but it was her first marriage and her first house.  It was up to Hera to sell the house--Frank owed her too much money to have a stake in it anymore, and he signed it over easily.  It was all so easy to leave.

Hera creaked up the wooden staircase to the second floor, looking at the lumpy, pale blue walls.  While she had been occupied doing laundry in the basement, Frank started pulling off the cheap wall paneling against her wishes.  By the time she heard the racket, he was too far along to put it back.  Frank left the panels in the hallway and stopped his unwanted project forcing Hera to pound out the tiny nails, haul the panels to the garbage, and pull the remaining panels off the living room, the parlor, and the rest of the stairwell.  Hera had to repair the damaged plaster the panels were hiding--the whole reason she didn't want them off--before sanding, painting, painting and repainting.

The bedrooms on the second floor were empty and smelling of pine floor cleaner.  Hera had to clean up after the ill-advised housemate Frank invited to live with them, only one year after their wedding.  When Peter had finally moved out, he left a pile of garbage, a cat, and a smell that turned out to be impossible to remove completely.

Hera creaked up the final, narrower set of stairs to the attic where she and Frank had their bedroom.  Her steps slowed as she turned the corner and ducked automatically around the angled roof lines.  The room only ever had two temperatures: hot or freezing.  This early evening was hot.  Hera looked around the now empty room.  Frank had taken the bed.  She knew he would, but didn't realize he had.  Remembering the long day they had choosing the king-sized monstrosity hit her harder than expected.  Hera hadn't cried much over the end of their marriage--after all, she had been the one to ask for it--but this final walk-though was so... final.  Their bed, their marriage bed, was gone.

Hera gasped in the close heat and fell to her knees in the middle of the attic room.  She sobbed until her head felt too heavy and she pressed it to the Berber carpet they had chosen, another pale blue that he had liked so much.  The knobby carpet pressed into her knees and elbows and forehead, leaving an impression.  Hera cried until she could barely breathe and lay gasping on her side.  She stared at the blank walls, at the closed windows, and at the expanse of carpet her now ex-husband had chosen.  Underneath, she knew there was a note to any future person who would eventually tear up the carpet.  It was a note commemorating their relationship, their love, their wishes for the future.  Hera ran her hand over the carpet, rubbing it like a mother consoling a crying child.  At her sideways angle, Hera saw a loose loop of carpeting.  Feeling drained and bemused, she pulled on it, and a three-inch piece of carpet came away.

362

"Every child needs to experience the final loss, Carter.  That's why you're here."  Grandpa Henry's barn was dark in the corners, a single, bare bulb swinging from its cord near the door made the shadows grow and shrink.  Carter shivered in the clothes he threw on over his pajamas when his grandfather woke him.  There was a small noise somewhere in the dark.  "Come on, boy.  You've got to watch."  Carter pressed backwards, against his grandfather's large hand, but there would be no resisting his strong, farmer's push.

358

The worst part about it was that Jenna knew she was slow.  She remembered her life before the accident, and though she couldn't understand it all, she knew she had been smart.  Jenna felt that her brain had become segmented, and if she reached and stretched she could grasp what she had, but she could only brush her fingertips against it.  That was when the frustration and anger became too much and Jenna would scream and try to bash her broken head against the floor.

322

Most people think that when you lose everything, it goes in a blink, but "everything" encompasses so much, it takes a while to finally get to nothing.  You keep redefining "everything" and "nothing" as you lose what you have.  Taking the bus is better for the environment.  Well, my job wasn't everything.  The house was starting to get to be too much anyway and apartments are low maintenance.  We're saving money by not having a pet.  And by not being able to bury him properly.  Hey, this generic food from Save-a-Lot is just like the food we used to buy at Trader Joe's!  Hey, these food pantries get the same food we used to get!  Hey, this shelter serves some good meals.  I could stand to lose a few pounds anyway, so skipping a meal or two won't kill me.  I don't need more clothes than I can wear at one time.  At least we have each other.

307

It was the day after he died that I went for the first time by myself to a live concert.  I had never heard of the bands, nor had I ever gone to a club like this.  I wasn't even sure what kind of music it would be, I just went.  The only assurance I had was that it would be loud and crowded, which was perfect for forgetting.

I didn't remember dressing for it, but I still have the t-shirt, crunchy with sweat and spilled beer and a splash of blood, not mine.  I should have felt out of place, being one of the only females, and the only one not in the band who was over forty.  The guy at the door asked if I was looking for somebody.  It was nice he was willing to let me in to find my kids, but I have no kids.  "No.  Just one admission, please."  I must have had some look on my face because he didn't say any more, but his eyes lingered.  The floor was sticky and it smelled like spilled beer and piss even before people started spilling and pissing.  When the first band took the stage, I fought my way into the middle and jumped with the crowd, letting the driving bass and thumping drums and screaming vocals take me.  That first night, the day after he died, I screamed and cried in the crowd, pushing and shoving against the bodies of the young.

306

How creepy is it to have the heart you were born with thrown out and some dead person's slopping around in its place, waiting to be rejected by your ungrateful body?  Super freaking creepy, is what.  A stranger's heart is hiding in my chest, and I know it doesn't want to be there.  It wants to be back in its owner, a stupid twenty-three year old college kid with a motorcycle and a need for speed, but it can't go back because he smeared himself down a highway.  Luckily for me, they say, the road rash didn't go all the way through his body to damage his heart, which still beats ferociously, wishing to find the adrenaline thrill of a street race again.  Unfortunately, it's in my chest.  My stupid body wants my old heart back.  I want my old heart back.  I wasn't meant to be parted from it.  I was born with it, and I should have died with it, but since I'm only a few years older than that stupid dead motorcyclist hot rod, I'm alive and waiting.  I hate the sound of this heart which beats, traitor...traitor...traitor...  I'm a traitor to myself and I know I will pay when my body finally says, ENOUGH! and rejects this adrenaline-junkie's meat.

305

They say you can never go home again, and I never believed them.  I thought you couldn't go home only when the place had been plowed under, like my place eventually was, but I couldn't go home a long time before that.  Home had changed.  Okay, I suppose I had, too, but not as much as home had.  I wanted the avocado green carpets.  I wanted the harvest gold appliances.  I wanted the nubby black sofa with the square arms and the squashy throw pillows.  I wanted it to smell like dog.  I wanted the rotary phone to ring and ring and ring.  I wanted it to be the home I remembered, but it wasn't.  It changed, but I wanted it to be the same.

286

It was supposed to be  "name your price" sale, but Sam was still embarrassed to offer the church volunteer her measly three dollars for the paper shopping bag she had filled to overflowing.  Sam sat on one of the old upholstered chairs for sale and looked at her finds.  She tried counting the individual items, but kept losing track.  It would cost far more at a thrift store, but she couldn't afford thrift stores anymore.  Sam felt her eyes prickle as a complex wave of nostalgia and pity and helplessness surged through her.  She calmed herself with a resigned sigh.  Three dollars was all she had, so if they said no, so be it.

277

The search party's voices were ripped apart by the wind and smothered by the icy snow, but still they kept on for hours after dark.  Groups had already returned to the Inn Malcolm to report and defrost by the common room's enormous hearth.  None had good news.  The last group to return was the one lead on past sense by Fulcrum, Hannah's older brother.  Fulcrum had not wanted to return, but with the snows worsening, it was only a matter of time until search parties would be needed for them, and the group pleaded with the grieving brother's common sense.

276

The phone was getting hot against James' ear and he kept glancing at the clock.  This phone call to his mother was supposed to be short.  A quick question, a clear answer, and off to shopping, but these conversations were never short.  James closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe.

"I'm trying to convince your father to sell this place."

James' eyes flicked open.  "What?  Why?  I..."

"What would happen if one or both of us had to go to a nursing home?'

"Nursing home?  You..."

"They make you spend all your money and then the put you on Medicaid.  It would all disappear.  They'd take it all.  Plus, it's so much work for your father.  Ever since he had The Incident, he hasn't been quite right."

"What do you mean?  Is Dad..."

"He forgets things.  Your grandmother, God bless her, was showing symptoms of dementia for years; symptoms I didn't recognize at the time, but they were there."

James rubbed his forehead.  "Are you saying that Dad has demen..."

"He asked me what temperature to set the thermostat for bed, and he knows that."

"Well, that's not..."

"Whenever I mention selling, all I get is silence, anyway.  I'll keep working on him."

235

The moon rose over the canyon wall, big and white and clear.  The rocks were still warm, but the air had been gathering a chill.  It was still, cloudless, the stars stretching out to forever and the start of the universe.  Cabe lay dying in his sleeping bag.  He had maneuvered himself so the fire was behind him and his head propped up on one of the low, warm rocks.  The additional heat from the fire warmed the top of his wispy-haired head.  Cabe shivered and stared at the moon, trying to gain perspective on his place in the world before he was gone from it.

192

Heather felt her tether tenuously.  It stretched and swung and slipped.  She hung, her hands hugging, her fingers tightening, yet sliding nonetheless.  Loosely, she lost, kicking and swinging, wheeling and keening, windy and whipping, falling, but not falling because there was no bottom.

181

I know what I will look like when I am old.  My eyes have acquired time travel, and I can see it.  I can see the skin, thinning and wrinkling into a thousand tiny creases on my face, my arms, my legs, my belly.  I can see my bones protruding, knuckles swelling, muscles weakening.  My skin is discolored with age spots, nicks and scars, and is blue with veins and bruises.  My shoulders roll forward and I will move stiffly and sit, one arm stiff, one hip raised.  I see my friends and family deteriorating faster and faster.  Buildings age before my eyes even faster than the humans.  I see other things, too.  Things I don't understand and that don't seem to concern me.  I know these are the things I will shake my gray head at, careful not to turn too far.  The eyes of my mind see through future time, too, and I can see how it will turn back to the memories of my past.  I know which experiences I will recount over and over.  I know what I will regret and what I will cherish.  Time travel is heavy.  It weighs on a body.  My eyes get a far-away look that has nothing to do with vagueness of sight or cataracts.  It is time travel.

178

Colors drained from the world before her eyes.  The sky paled, the trees greyed, the ground became a lifeless desert.  People were flat images sliding by a desiccated landscape.  Sound became a muted, muddy hum.  Not even sharp noises could penetrate--only dull thumps.

177

People rarely go crazy all at once, and if they do "snap", it's usually temporary.  When an acquaintance seems as if they've suddenly gone insane, the suddenness is usually an illusion based on time.  It was so with Gina.

To Helene, it seemed as if Gina had suddenly lost her mind, but, in reality, it had just been a long time since Helene had seen her cousin.  Helene liked to joke that their family didn't have reunions; they had wakes.  It was only after one of the family died that anyone got together, and that was the case this year, too.  Great Uncle Fritz had finally died and Helene coordinated her visit to when her parents would be there.  As it turned out, Gina was there, too.

Gina had always been Helene favorite cousin. 

146

Clara had lost her Great Aunt Maggie.  To be fair, it was not only Clara who had lost the old woman, but her entire family.  It was Clara, however, who felt the most guilt.

"How does nobody know where Aunt Maggie is?" Clara asked her father, whose mother's sister Maggie was.  Her father promised he'd ask the family, but no word came back.  Clara suspected that the family didn't mourn the loss; the old woman could have been nicely described as "irritable" and "weird".

The best anyone could do was Clara's mother who remembered something about a nursing home in the area of Genesee Street and Butler Avenue.  Clara looked up a dozen various key words online and found a handful of possibilities.  Was Great Aunt Maggie even still alive?  The family, outside of Clara, agreed the ninety-something year old woman was probably dead, but contradicting that was the absence of a body in her grave.  Where was Great Aunt Maggie?

129

I keep dreaming about my old house. I wander around, the way it used to be and the way it never was, or could be. I'm looking for something lost; something I desperately want before the house is chained shut and "NO TRESPASSING" means I can't get in again. It is the house I thought would always be there. I thought my parents would always be there, watching television in the family room. Perhaps my dad would be in the basement working. Perhaps my mom would actually be in the kitchen, getting ready to call Pizza Hut. My room, always the way I left it.

They say you can never go home again, and now I know what it means. My home wasn't my home for a long time because of changes, and I prefer to remember it the way it was when I was young. When that particular shade of green was all the rage. When the appliances were golden. When the curtains were still hung and my doll house was still powered and my dog was still alive. I can go back home again in my mind. It's where my real home still sits, waiting for me.

107

Luther thought back to when he still had his legs and hated himself for being so unappreciative. Stairs. His motorcycle. Regular shoes. They had given him prosthetic legs and he had dutifully learned how to use them, but they hurt and were awkward and he couldn't wear any of his old shoes. At least, he thought, my feet will never smell. At that, he burst into laughter that turned into tears, and the old people in the park stared at the crazy cripple.