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“Yeah, well, I got better things to do”

“Like s down by the creek?”

Lina shrugged and glanced around the bleachers, noticing the film of wrappers and old popcorn and spilled Coke that lay in sticky heaps on the ht you wanted to talk”

There was a long pause, then slowly, quietly, her an to speak “I was six years old when ht and went off to bed… When I woke up, she was gone No one wanted to tell uess, preparing a little girl to lose her ot to say” There was a surprising bitterness in her mother’s voice, a hardness she’d never heard before She frowned a little “After that, I saw the world differently I kneasn’t a safe place”

Lina felt the tears co them away, but didn’t bother “H-He was always there for me”

“He still is, baby”

Lina snorted and set into that God stuff It doesn’t help”

“You can call it God or Jesus or Allah orinside yourself and discovering what you believe If you don’t, you’ll have nothing to cling to, nothing to believe in, and everything will start falling apart Trust me, I know”

“I don’t want to think about that stuff now,” she said in a tiny, broken voice “If I do, all I end up thinking about is how gone he is, how he’s never co back, and how much I miss him”

“If Francis were right here, right noould he say to you?”

For a split second she could al in her ear A sad little smile plucked at her lips “He’d tell o home”

“You see? He’s there, inside you He alill be”

Lina wanted to smile, wanted it badly, but she couldn’t “He hatedanywhere”

Madelaine didn’t respond, but her silence seemed to say it all

“I know he’s right,” Lina said shakily, “but I don’t knohat to do about it I never did”