I see lights in the dark. The screeching sound of tires against concrete. Voices float in my head, someone’s crying. A loud thud. Silence. And then someone screams my name, “Kirsten!”

“Kirsten!”

I jerked awake and sat up on my bed. The curtains danced about wildly by the window in the last of spring’s breath. My feet were ice cold, numb. But I was panting. Panting. I found my hands wiping away the sweat on my face as the cries went on. I turned on the lights by the bed, and then shuffled towards the cot by the wall.

“Elena,” I called out as my hands reached for the wailing three-year-old. Cold, clammy little fingers grabbed mine and pulled me forward. I picked up her small frame in my arms as she wrapped her legs around my torso. “Hey, shh. I’m here,” I said, soothing my hands up and down her back.

I remembered not too long ago, when I first saw my sister cradle her little girl in her arms. She had been so little, so fragile, as if I just held on a little too tight she would shatter like pieces of glass. As I watched her then, her limbs reached out like a flower towards the sun, and I told my sister that she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. And now, three years later, she still was - even more, if that was possible. She had grown into her auburn hair, her dimples highlighting her smile, her big blue eyes shone under light, and her mouth, with a slight upward twist at the end, looked like a piece of artwork too priceless to claim.

She stopped crying as I rocked her back and forth, hoping for sleep the rest of the night.

“I see purple monsters. Big. Scary. They bite,” she took the courtesy to inform me, sniffling, as I put her down on my bed and slid under the covers right beside her. She clung on without release, and I couldn’t breathe.

“Barney’s purple,” I tried to make a point.

“But this one was scary. Big, sharp teeth. Eat me,” she shook, for effect. “Rawrh!”

I couldn’t help it, I laughed.

“It’s not funny!” she yelled, but barely after she heard herself she joined in. I flicked my fingers in her stomach, and she yelled louder.

“No tickle!” she managed between squeals.

We collapsed back on the bed, Elena a wriggling worm. She took a deep breath, and then, quietly.

“I miss my mommy."

I held her closer in my arms, taking in the smell of her shampoo, her body lotion filling my nose with the scents of the strawberry fields. There are nights like this, moments like these, when I catch her sad gaze across the room, or hear a certain plunge in her voice. Each time I felt her throbbing heart, I was sure she was going to cry. But she never did.

Yet I knew just how she felt. It was something we had in common, something we shared, a feeling I confided only in her, for the mere fact that she felt the same way I did. I never really said it out loud, but I thought back to that dream that got me up drenched in sweat. If you wanted to say something, then say it quick. Sometimes, you might not even get the chance, at all. So I did.

“I miss her, too,” I said.

She was quiet for a moment, and I felt a lurch in my stomach. Maybe I was wrong, maybe I shouldn’t have said it all. I felt my stomach tighten, I saw the familiar look in her eyes, the same desperate face, a longing. I knew. I knew it all too well.
“But you can see her next week.” I added, slowly. Hopefully.

“She can come back?” she asked, excitement playing across her face, an expression so endearing I couldn’t help but plant a kiss on her head. It was funny, like that, that if you gave a kid a ray of hope, they took it as the world.
“From college, baby girl, yes.”

“Really?” she crinkled her nose, willing the world to change for her. “Stay with Elena forever and ever?” There was something in her voice, almost a plea. Unlike me, Elena could hope. She could wish, and she could tell. I couldn’t hope. If there was anything I’d learnt, hope wasn’t exactly something you could count on. If you had too much of it, you’d end up disappointed.

“Yeah,” I said, as I hushed her back to sleep. “Forever and ever.”