am like an autistic with a puzzle. For the rest of my hospital stay, I study the pieces, putting them together in a dozen ways in an attempt to see the whole picture.

They tell me I didn’t walk away from the crash and I don’t believe they’re lying.

I’ve seen the newspaper stories—complete with photographs that made me physically ill. Several of the passengers, including Riegert, reported seeing me carried off the plane. As soon as they found my purse and identification, they called Stacey. I may be brain damaged and hallucinatory and drug addled, but I’m not stupid. I can add up the evidence.

I never walked away from the crash.

That’s what I know.

Somehow I have to make it what I believe.

If I could remember the crash, maybe that would make everything real. But the shrinks who now circle me like sharks in bloody water, think I’ll never remember. “Too traumatic,” they say.

I tell them “remembering” Daniel and Bobby hurts me more.

They don’t like that, the brain experts. Whenever I mention my adventure, they make tsk-tsk sounds and shake their heads.

Only Stacey lets me talk about Bobby and Daniel as if they’re real, and that—the simple act of her silent acceptance—somehow draws us together again. It seems, after all, that I am not the only one who has been changed by my near death. The nurses tell me that Stacey was my champion throughout it all, demanding the best for me, and organizing prayer and candlelight vigils in town.

Last night, she even slept in my room; this morning, she was up at the crack of dawn, readying my discharge papers.

“Are you ready to go?”

Now she is standing by the door. A nurse is next to her, with an empty wheelchair.

“I’m ready.”

I could knit a sweater in the time it takes me to get out of bed and into the wheelchair.

No one seems to notice but me. And then we are off, tooling down the hallway. Everyone I see says: “Good bye, Joy. Good luck.” I mumble thanks and try to look happy about going home.

Outside, Stacey rolls me over to a brand-new red minivan.

“New car, huh?”

“Thom got it for me for Christmas,” she says.

Thom. It is the first time she’s said his name to me.

We stare at each other for an uncomfortable moment longer, then she helps me into the passenger seat.

On the drive home we try to find things to say, but it isn’t easy. Suddenly, it’s as if my ex-husband is in the backseat, scenting the air between us with his aftershave.

“I got your car from the airport,” Stacey says as she turns onto Mullen Avenue.

It seems like a year ago that I turned into the long-term parking area. “How was the tree? Did it catch fire on the drive home?”

“The tree was fine. I donated it to the nursing home on Sunset.”

That’s right. The tree was only strapped onto my car for a day or so. Not the week I imagined. “Thanks.”

Stacey pulls into my driveway and parks. “You’re home.”

There are cars everywhere, and lights are on all up and down the street, but the neighborhood is strangely silent for late afternoon. For almost ten years I have lived in this house, on this street, and yet, just now, looking at it, I wonder if it ever really was my home. Rather, it was where I passed the time between shifts at the high school and tried to make a failing marriage into something it could never be.

The Comfort Lodge...

(which doesn’t apparently exist)... now that’s a home.

Don’t go there, Joy.

Stacey comes around to my door and helps me out. She gets me situated on my crutches and together, moving slowly, we make our way around the yard.

We are at the corner, by the huge, winter-dead lilac tree that was our first investment in the yard, when a crowd of people surge out from behind the house, yelling, “Surprise!”

I stumble to a halt. Stacey places a hand in the small of my back to steady me.

There must be two hundred people in front of me; most are holding lit candles, several hold up signs that say “Welcome Home, Joy.” The first person to come forward is Gracie Leon—a girl I suspended last semester for defacing all three copies of To Kill a Mockingbird. “We prayed for you, Mrs. Candellaro.”

A young man comes forward next, stands beside Gracie. Willie Schmidt. Seven years ago, he was my fourth period teacher’s assistant. Now he has students of his own at a local high school. “Welcome back,” he says, handing me a beautiful pink box. Inside it are hundreds of cards.

Mary Moro is next. She’s a junior this year, and head cheerleader. She holds out a Christmas cactus in a white porcelain bowl. “I bought this with my babysitting money, Mrs. Candellaro. Remember when you said the only plant you could keep alive was a cactus?”

Then I see Bertie and Rayla from work; they stand pressed together like a pair of salt and pepper shakers. Both of them have left their families to be here.

My throat is so full I can hardly nod. It’s all I can do to whisper, “Thanks.”

They surge toward me, all talking at once.

We stand in the yard, talking and laughing and sharing the surface connections of our lives. No one mentions the plane crash, but I feel their curiosity; unasked questions hang behind other words. I wonder if and when it will become a thing I can talk about.

By the time they finally start to leave, night is falling on Madrona Lane. The streetlamps are coming on.

My sister guides me to my front door and unlocks it.

My house, on my return, is as silent as it was when I left.

“I put you in the downstairs bedroom,” Stacey says, and our thoughts veer onto an ugly road. We are both remembering the day I came home to find her in my bed.

It is not the first time our thoughts have gone here and it won’t be the last. Our recent past is like a speed bump; you slow down and go over it, then drive on your way again.

“Good thinking,” I say.

She helps me get settled in the downstairs guest room. When I’m in bed, she brings me several books, a plate of cheese and crackers, a Big Gulp from the local mini mart, the television remote and my wireless laptop. I notice a magazine in with the books. It’s the same Redbook I was reading in the lodge. “That’s pretty old,” I say, pointing to it.

Stacey glances at the magazine, then shrugs. “I read it to you in the hospital almost every day. There was a great article in it on refurbishing a log cabin that used to be a bed and breakfast. Remember when you wanted to be an innkeeper?”

“Yeah,” is all I can say. No wonder my Comfort Lodge was in need of repair.

Stacey props my cast onto a pillow, then steps back. “Will you be okay for the night? I could stay.”

“No. Your... Thom will miss you.”

“He wants to see you.”

“Does he? That’s quite a turn around.”

We stare at each other; neither of us knows where to go after that.

“It’s like napalm, the way it comes and goes,” Stacey says.

“Yeah.”

“I can stay.”

“Go home to your...” Despite my best intentions, I trip up. What do I call him, my ex-husband? Her lover? Boyfriend? What?

“Fiancé.” She stares at me hard, biting her lip. I know she wants to say just the right thing, as if the perfect words are a bleach that can remove this stain between us.

The silence lingers, turns awkward. I want to mention her wedding, perhaps even say I’ll be there, but I don’t know if I dare promise such a thing.

I can see how the quiet between us wounds her. She tries valiantly to smile. “Did you tell Mom about me and Thom, by the way?”

“You think that’s what was on my mind when I was dying?”

“You always were a tattletale.”

I can’t help smiling at that. Her words take us back to a time when there was no silence between us. Suddenly we’re six and seven again, fighting in the smelly backseat of Mom’s VW bus. “You’re right. And, yes, I told her.”

“What did she say?”

“She told me to wake up. It’s good advice.”

Stacey reaches out, brushes the hair from my eyes. “When you were... sleeping, I didn’t think I’d get another chance with you.”

I don’t know what to say except, “I know.” The nurses have told me that her devotion to me was legendary.

“I was there at the hospital, you know,” she says. “From the second we heard. I almost never left.”

It’s what I would have done for her, too. “I missed you, Stace.”

She finally smiles. “I missed you, too.”

By the end of my first week at home, I’m ready to scream.

I spend the better part of my days on pain pills, trying not to move. Everything hurts, but pain is not the worst of it. What I hate most are the nights.

I lie in bed, staring up at my ceiling, trying to tell myself that the rainforest was a construct of my own mind. Before the plane crash, I was lost and lonely, desperate to want someone and be wanted in return. I can admit it now; losing both my sister and my husband unhinged me somehow. Without them, I was adrift.

So I made up the man I wanted to love me and the boy I wanted to love.

In the cold light of day, it makes sense. I was tired of hot, dry Bakersfield; I imagined a magical world of green grass and towering trees and impossible mist.

On paper, it pencils out, makes perfect sense in a psych 101 kind of way. At night, however, it’s different.

Then, the darkness—and my loneliness—just goes on and on and on. For the first time in my life, I can’t read to pass the time. Every hero becomes Daniel; every heartfelt moment makes me sob. Even movies are useless. When I turn on the television I remember Miracle on 34th Street and the Grinch; not to mention the fifteen Winnie-the-Pooh videos we watched.

God help me, in the darkness, I believe. Over and over again, I try to “return.” Each attempt and failure diminishes my hope.

I can’t stand it.

It’s time for me to either fish or cut bait. I’ve spent too long floating on a drug sea, dreaming of one place, and sitting in another. I need to believe in my rainforest, to find it, or to let it go. It’s a cinch what my shrink would advise. There’s no room in the real world for the kind of fantasy realm I’ve imagined. But I keep thinking of moments—the way Daniel and I said “fate” at the same time; the way our wish on the star was the same. The television broadcast with Stacey. I didn’t hear her broadcast from my coma; I saw it. And there’s the fix-it list Bobby had on Christmas morning. Maybe that was somehow real. If it was, I was there, however impossible that sounds.

What I need is evidence. And if there’s one thing a librarian can do, it’s research.

Throwing the covers back, I hobble out of bed, get my crutches and then turn on all the lights. In the garage, I find what I’m looking for: my files. I take several—the Pacific Northwest, Washington, and North American rainforests. Clutching the manila folders to my side, I return to the desk in my living room.

Beneath a light bright enough to dispel shadows and sharp enough to illuminate the truth, I begin laying out my materials, organizing them into piles. Then I turn on my laptop and search the Web.

It doesn’t take long to identify the core problem.

All I know about my dream life is that it took place in a rainforest in Washington State. According to a Googled statistic, the Olympic National Forest is roughly the size of Massachusetts.

And I am trying to find one—imaginary—lakeside town that probably has a population of less than one thousand people.

Oh, and let’s not forget that I don’t know the name of the town, or the lake, or Daniel and Bobby’s last name.

A woman less impressionable might say that if fate exists, it doesn’t want me to find my way back.

Still, I trudge ahead, unwilling—unable, maybe—to give up. I make my own map, underline possible towns and lakes and call information for each city I can find. There is no listing for a Comfort Fishing Lodge. Then I call realtors. There are two fishing lodges for sale in the area; I’ve gotten e-mail photos of both. Neither is the one I remember.

Finally, nearly eight hours after I begin my search, I shut my laptop and lay my head on top of it, closing my eyes. By now, the walls of my living room are studded with pieces of paper—maps, photographs, articles. The place looks like a task force command center.

And none of it helps.

I don’t know exactly how long I remain there. At some point, I hear a car drive up.

I glance up, and see Stacey’s van pull into the driveway.

I grab my crutches and head for the entry.

At her first knock, I open the door.

She is on my porch, holding a casserole pan in gloved hands.

It’s Mom’s chicken divan recipe. Chicken, cheese, mayonnaise, and broccoli. “I guess you forgot about them restarting my heart.”

Stacey pales. “Oh. I didn’t...”

“I’m just kidding. It looks great. Thanks.” I wobble around and make my way back to the living room.

Stacey veers into the kitchen, probably puts the casserole in the oven, and then joins me. In the living room, she comes to a dead stop. Her gaze moves from wall to wall, where papers hang in grape-like bunches.

“Welcome to Obsessionville,” I say. There’s no point in trying to explain. I make my halting way to the sofa and sit down, planting my casted foot on the coffee table. “I’m searching for the town.”

“The one you never went to.”

“That’s the one.”

Stacey sits in the chair opposite me. “I’m worried about you. Thom says...”

“Let’s not start a conversation like that. It’s your turn to care about what he says.”

“You’ve been home almost seven days and you haven’t let anyone visit except me. And now...” She lifts her hand to indicate the walls. “This.”

“Bertie and Rayla have both stopped by.”

Stacey gives me “The Look.” “Bertie called me because you said you were too tired to see her.”

“I’m in pain.”

“Is that really it?”

“What are you, my keeper?” I don’t want to explain the inexplicable.

“It’s that dream, isn’t it?”

I sigh, feeling my defenses crumble. All I can tell her now is the sad truth. “I can’t let go of it. I know it’s crazy—that I’m crazy—but the pictures are so familiar. I know how it smells there and feels there, how the mist floats up from the grass in the morning. How do I know these things? Maybe when you develop my film, I’ll get an answer.” It’s the dream I’ve clung to.

As I say the words, I see my sister frown. It’s a quick expression, there and gone, but if there’s one thing sisters recognize in each other, it’s a secret being kept. “What?”

“What what?”

“You’re hiding something from me, and, given that your last big secret was my husband, I’m...”

Stacey stands. Turning away, she walks out of the room. A few moments later she’s back, carrying a manila envelope. “Here.”

I take it from her, though if I had two good legs, my instinct is to run. “I won’t like this, will I?”

“No.” Stacey’s voice is soft; that makes me more nervous.

I open the envelope and find photographs inside. I look up at Stacey, who shakes her head.

“I’m sorry.”

The envelope drops from my grasp. I turn through the pictures. When I get to the few taken in the airport, I gasp. There’s the plane, before the crash, and the crowd of hunters waiting to board, and the interior before takeoff. Riegert, giving his buddy the thumbs up.

After that, nothing.

No photos of the lodge or the rainforest or the lake. No spiderwebs dripping with dew, no clusters of old growth trees and the giant ferns at their feet. Just twenty-nine empty gray pictures.

“I wasn’t there,” I say slowly, feeling it for the first time.

“I’m sorry, Joy,” Stacey says after a moment, “but you have a real life here. And people who love you. Rayla says students ask about you every day.”

I can hear my sister talking, but the words are like smoke, drifting past me. All I can think about is the boy who made me promise to stay for Christmas. My heart feels like it’s breaking down the middle; it’s hard to breathe. It takes all my self-control not to cry at the smoky, blank photographs. Still, I know what I’m supposed to say, what she wants to hear. “I’m sure everything will be fine when I start working again.”

“Don’t you miss it?’

It takes me a minute to hear her. I look up. “Miss what?”

“The library. You used to love it.”

I know Stacey hears herself say love it; all I hear is used to. “What I love doesn’t seem to exist.”

“You’re starting to scare me.”

“Join the club, little sister.”

It is amazing how quickly a bone can heal. If only the heart were as durable. A little plaster, two months of bed rest, and voila! your broken heart is mended. I wish it were true.

By late February, I am moving well again. My headaches are all but gone and my leg is coming along nicely, according to the battalion of doctors who oversee my care. They urge me to consider returning to work, though, to be honest, I have trouble contemplating my future.

It’s because of the nights.

Alone in my bed, I can’t control or corral my thoughts. In sleep, I dream about the Comfort Lodge and Daniel and Bobby.

Even during the stark, bright daylight hours, I have problems. No matter what I’m supposed to be doing, I keep drifting northward in my mind. Everything reminds me of the pseudo-memories I can’t let go of.

My psychiatrist—the newest member of the post-crash-save-Joy-team tells me that what I’ve experienced is not that uncommon. Apparently lots of head cases are head cases, if you know what I mean.

My shrink says it’s because I’m not happy with my real life. She thinks I’ve let the accident paralyze me emotionally, and that when I wake up, I’ll quit needing a forest mirage as my ideal.

I tell her she’s wrong. I was emotionally paralyzed before the crash. This is just same old–same old. The difference is, now I know what I want. I just can’t find it.

Before the crash, I wanted Thom back.

Now I’m actually happy he’s gone. I worry for my sister that it’s dangerous to love a man who has already betrayed one wife, but she has made her choice, and truthfully, at his heart, Thom is a good man. I can only hope he’ll be a good husband to my sister.

I’m so deep in thought, I’m surprised when I hear my doorbell ring.

I glance at the clock. It’s twelve-fifteen. As usual, she’s right on time with my lunch. “Come in,” I say, getting to my feet, reaching for the crutches.

Stacey comes in, carrying a stack of magazines and videos. They have become her peace offerings, these things she collects for me, her way of saying she doesn’t think I’m crazy, even though I’m sure she does. “These are the newest Sunset magazines—two have articles on rainforest getaways—four local Sunday newspapers, and two movies shot up there. Harry and the Hendersons, about a Sasquatch, and Double Jeopardy.”

We both know how much it means to me, these pointless, silly gifts; we also know it won’t do any good. I’m not going to suddenly “see” where I’ve imagined. The walls of my downstairs are now entirely covered with maps and photographs. None of the butter yellow walls beneath can be seen.

I take the pile of things from Stacey, knowing I will watch or read each item carefully. Knowing, too, that all I’ll find are images that strike a chord but create no real memory.

While Stacey puts things away in the kitchen, I go into my living room and sit down on the sofa. In the new Sunset magazine, I see a photograph of the Hoh rainforest that makes me feel homesick for a place that doesn’t exist.

“Joy?”

I look up to see Stacey holding a tray of croissant sandwiches. It isn’t until I see the look on her face that I realize I’m crying.

“Maybe I shouldn’t bring you this stuff.”

“I need them,” I hear the panicked edge in my voice.

So does she. She sets the tray down on the coffee table. “You have to come into the real world.” Her voice is tentative; I know she’s wanted to say this for a long time, but has been afraid. We are not yet the sisters we once were, who could say anything to each other. She plucks up a sandwich, sets it on a napkin and sits across from me.

“The real world,” I say softly, putting the magazine aside. Getting up, I make my awkward way to the window. There I stand on my good leg, staring out at the houses across the street. Now, in the winter, the lawns are dead and brown, as are the trees. There hasn’t been a leaf on the road for months. Everything on the block is gray or brown, it seems, and the pale sunlight only manages to dull it all. “Last night I dreamt I was stuck right here,” I say, without turning to look at Stacey. “Watching life pass me by. In my dream, I could see your house. Your lights were always on; there were kids in your yard. One of them was a quiet, watchful girl who always waited her turn. You named her Joy. And here I was, stuck. Wrinkling like a dying grape, going gray, wanting.” I take a deep breath and turn around to face her. There’s something I need to tell her; something I probably should have admitted before. “You weren’t the only reason I got on that plane. Most of it, maybe, but not all. I was so tired of who I’d become.”

Stacey doesn’t respond to that. I’m not surprised. She doesn’t know what to say, and she doesn’t want to say the wrong thing. Our relationship is fragile; we both handle it like hot glass.

“You can’t understand,” I finally say. How could she? My sister never let anything pass her by. She’s never been a spectator.

“Are you kidding?” She stares at me as if I am a science exhibit under glass. “You think I don’t know about wanting more?”

“You were a cheerleader, for gosh sake, and homecoming queen. And now you’re pregnant and in love.”

“Sixteen years ago I was a cheerleader, Joy. When you went off to college, I stayed in Bakersfield and worked dead-end jobs.”

“But you met Chris...”

“And he didn’t just break my heart, he shattered it, remember?” She sighs. “I used to watch your life and feel like such a failure. You came home from college in love with Thom and had the perfect wedding and then got the great job at the high school. You succeeded at everything you tried. I hated always being in your shadow.”

I frown. “Is that why you moved away?”

“I thought a big city would help, but in Sacramento I felt even more lost. It was too busy for me. So I came back here and used my divorce settlement to buy a house, but I still couldn’t manage to get a decent job. It’s tough when you’re twenty-eight years old with no husband and no education—especially when your sister seems to have it all.”

“You should have come to me.”

“I tried.”

I want to tell her it’s not true, but we’re well past the lying-to-each-other stage. The last year has given us that, at least. I glance out the window; anything is better than looking at her. “I know you did, but I was barely hanging on. Thom and I were fighting like crazy.”

“I know,” she says softly. “I came over one day to talk to you, and found him at home.”

So that’s how it had begun. I’d wanted to know, though I never would have asked. Now that she’s planted the words, I see them grow: how they were friends first, my sister and my husband, commiserating about their disappointed lives, then commiserating about me, then finding solace in each other.

“It took him a long time to tell me how unhappy he was, but once he did...”

I hold up my hand. “I get it.”

“So, I know about being lost, Joy,” she says instead. “Can you imagine how it feels to hurt the one person you love most in the world? To break your sister’s heart and know you can never apologize enough?”

This time when I look at my sister I see a woman I’ve never met, one who’s been through hard times—is still going through them, perhaps—and lives with the pain of her own bad choices. She knows about fading; maybe every woman of a certain age does, especially in quiet towns like this one where the sun can be so hot.

Not like the rainforest.

There, in that moist green and blue world, there is no drying up of a woman’s spirit.

I push that thought away. No good can come of it. I turn back to Stacey. This is what matters. Us. Whatever is unreal about who I met or where I’ve been, it’s all led me back to this moment with my sister. The beginning. “So,” I say softly, “how’s the pregnancy going?”

I hear her surprise; she takes a thin breath and battles a sudden smile. I can’t help wondering how long she’s been waiting for me to ask. “Good. The doctors say everything is normal.”

“Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”

“They think it’s a girl.”

A niece to shop for; dress up like a little doll... love. “Mom would have gone nuts.”

“We thought we’d name her Elizabeth Sharon.”

That hits me hard. “Yeah. She’d like that.”

We fall silent again. I want to say more, make a sweet, innocuous comment about the baby, but I’ve lost my voice. Selfishly, I am caught in my own sense of loss; I take a deep breath and try to let it go, but it’s difficult. I keep remembering my dream, where I was frozen in this spot, the aging aunt, watching life pass her by.

“You’re losing it, aren’t you?” Stacey says after the pause.

I look at her, wondering if that’s accurate. Can you lose something you never really had? “I’m scared, Stace. It’s like... I don’t know what to hang on to. I feel like I’m going crazy.”

She stares at me, frowning. Just when I expect an answer, she leaves the room. I hear her making a phone call in the kitchen. Then she returns and says, “Come on. I’m taking you somewhere.”

“Where?”

“What do you care? It’s out of this house. Get your purse.”

To be honest, I’m thankful for the distraction. I follow her out to the minivan.

Fifteen minutes later, we pull up to our destination.

The high school is bathed in lemony sunlight. Bright purple crocuses cover the dry brown ground around the flagpole, reminding me that spring is on its way.

“Are you okay?”

It is a question I’ve come to hate. To answer it requires either a lie or a truth that no one—me included—wants to hear.

“Why are we here?”

“Because it’s where you belong.”

“Is it?”

Stacey says something I can’t quite hear, then gets out of the van and slams the door.

I get out of the minivan and stand on the sidewalk, leaning heavily on my crutches. Gripping their padded handles, I step-swing-step-swing down the wide cement courtyard toward the administrative building.

The Quad is surprisingly quiet today, no kids skipping classes to play hacky sack in the sunshine or looking for a place to kiss or smoke.

Stacey runs ahead to the building and opens the door for me. Familiar flyers—they’re the same ones year after year—clutter the bulletin boards in the hallway. They’re looking for student leaders, and singers for this year’s spring musical, and volunteers willing to decorate for the upcoming dance.

As I approach the main entrance, the bell rings. Within seconds, the Quad is crowded with kids laughing and talking.

When they see me, a roar of recognition goes up. Suddenly I’m Mick Jagger on stage. A star. Everyone talks to me at once, crowding in close.

Stacey squeezes my arm. “This,” she whispers in my ear, “is your real life.”

It takes us the entire ten minutes of the class break to work our way through the crowd and to the main office, where we’re overwhelmed again. Finally, when I’ve hugged at least one hundred people and been welcomed back by even more, we make our way down the hall to the library.

I’m struggling with my crutches at the turnstile, when I hear Rayla’s throaty laughter and scratchy, I-used-to-be-a-Camel-unfiltered-smoker’s voice. “Well, it’s about darn time.”

I push through the shiny metal barrier and find her standing at the checkout desk, with a skyscraper of books beside her elbow. “This is a big job for one woman,” she says with a toothy grin.

I laugh at that. We both know that either of us could easily do it alone. It is a secret we keep from the administration. “Now, Rayla, you know you love bossing the kids around when I’m gone.”

She comes around the desk, her skirt flowing, her silver bracelets tinkling, and enfolds me in a fierce hug that smells of hairspray and Tabu perfume. “We missed you, kiddo,” she says.

I draw back, look down at her. “I’ve missed you, too.” And it’s true.

For the next half hour, we walk around the library, talking about ordinary things—budget cuts, contract negotiations, recent acquisitions, and Rayla’s upcoming spring break trip to Reno.

“So,” she says at last. “When can we expect you back?”

It is the question I’ve been dreading. Back. By definition, it’s a return to what was.

I take a deep breath, knowing there is only one acceptable answer, only one sane one.

Stacey is watching me closely. So is Rayla. They both know. Not everything, perhaps, not all the reasons for my disquiet and my disappointment, but enough.

“Soon,” I say, trying to smile.

On the drive home, Stacey and I are quiet.

I feel like Dorothy, back in Kansas, a black-and-white girl in a black-and-white world, with memories in color.

Beside me Stacey sings along to some catchy, generic song from one of the American Idol runners-up.

Then it’s Bruce Springsteen, singing “Baby, I Was Born to Run.”

Memory overwhelms me. I close my eyes, remembering.

I’m in a red truck, bouncing down a country road, singing along to the radio. I can feel Bobby beside me, hear him laughing.

When I open my eyes—unable to take any more—I see the airport exit.

It can’t be accidental. Stacey never goes home this way.

And I think: Dorothy had to click her heels together three times and say, “There’s no place like home.” Even magic requires something.

Maybe I need to quit waiting for proof and go in search of Hope, like I did before. “Turn here, Stacey.”

“You were never there.” I know how much she hates to say those words to me. It’s in her voice. “You saw your real life at the high school.”

“Please?”

With a sigh, she follows the exit to the airport and pulls up outside the America West ticket counter. “This is crazy, Joy.”

“I know.” I grab my purse and the crutches from the backseat, and I’m off, hobbling into the terminal. At the counter, I find a beautiful dark-haired woman in a blue and white uniform. Her nametag identifies her as Donna Farnham.

“May I help you?”

“I want a ticket to Seattle on the next flight.”

The ticket agent looks to her computer screen, types quickly on the keys, then looks up at me. “There’s a flight leaving in forty minutes. The next one is tomorrow afternoon. Same time.”

I reach into my purse for my wallet. What’s a credit card for if not unnecessary expenditures? “I’ll take a ticket for today.”

“All we have left is first class.”

I don’t even ask how much. “Great. I’ll take it.”

By the time I’ve made it through the security line and find my way to the gate, my hands are sweating and my heart is hammering.

I try to think of Daniel and Bobby, try to believe I can make the magic strike again. I’m Dorothy. There’s no place like home, I tell myself, but my confidence is draining fast, being pummeled by the bright fluorescent lights overhead. In this light, I can’t help seeing clearly.

When they call my flight, I take a step forward.

Then I see the plane.

Images charge me; hit me so hard I almost fall down. I close my eyes and try to breathe, but that’s no help. In the darkness, I’m on the plane again, going down. Flames are all around me... I smell the stink of fuel... and hear the screams. I’m falling, tumbling, and hitting... being carried out of the wreckage. I can see it all: my face covered with blood; my arm hanging down from the gurney; the bone poking up through my torn, bloody jeans. The plane exploding behind me.

The shaking starts in my fingers and radiates outward until I can hardly hold onto my crutches. My palms are slick with sweat; I can’t swallow. Tears stream down my cheeks and blur my vision. Several people ask if I’m okay. I nod and push them away. If I could run, I would, but I’m as broken outside right now as I feel within, so I leave slowly, limping away from Hope. I’d crawl if I had to.

When I finally emerge from the terminal and step out into the bright, sunlit day, I see my sister.

She’s standing in front of her minivan, by the passenger door.

I go to her, clutching my ticket. “I remember.”

She puts her arms around me, holds me, and lets me cry.