lizabeth pushed herself forward gently on the swinging bench in her back garden. She cradled a warm coffee cup in her hands, wrapping her slender fingers around the limestone-colored mug. The sun was slowly setting and a slight chill was creeping out from hiding to take its place. She stared up into the sky, a perfect vision of candy-floss clouds; pink, red, and orange, like an oil painting. An amber glow rose from behind a mountain before her, like the kind of secret glow that rose from Luke's bedcovers when he was reading with a torch. She breathed in the cooling air deeply.

Red sky at night, she heard a voice inside her head say.

"Shepherd's delight," she whispered softly.

A soft breeze blew, as if the air around her were sighing. She had been sitting outside now for the past hour. Luke was upstairs playing with his friend Sam after spending the day at his grandfather's. She was awaiting the arrival of Sam's father, whom she'd never met, to come and collect him. Edith usually dealt with the friends' parents and so she wasn't quite looking forward to chitchat about children.

It was nine forty-five p.m. and light, it seemed, was calling it a day. She had been rocking herself back and forth, fighting the tears that threatened to fall, swallowing the lump that threatened to rise in her throat, forcing back the thoughts that threatened to drown her mind. It felt as though she were fighting everything right now. She fought the people who invited

themselves into her world without her permission; she fought Luke and his head full of childish ways, her sister and her problems, Poppy and her ideas at work, Joe and his coffee shop, competitors in her business. She felt she was always fighting, fighting, fighting. And now, here she sat, fighting her very own emotions.

She felt as if she'd been through a hundred rounds in the ring, as if she'd taken every punch, thump, and kick her opponents could throw at her. Now she was tired. Her muscles ached, her defense was falling, and her wounds weren't healing so quickly. A cat leaped from the high wall that separated Elizabeth from her neighbors and landed in her garden. It glanced at Elizabeth, chin held high, eyes glowing in the darkness. It walked slowly across the grass, without a care in the world. So sure of itself, so confident, so full of its own self-importance. It jumped onto the opposite wall and disappeared into the night. She envied its ability to come and go as it pleased, without owing anybody anything, not even those closest who loved and cared for it.

Elizabeth used her foot to push herself back again. The swing squeaked slightly. In the distance, the mountain appeared to be burning as the sun slipped down and out of sight. On the other side, the full moon awaited its final call to center stage to take over the night shift. The crickets continued to chatter loudly to each other, the last of the children ran to their homes for the night. Car engines stopped, car doors slammed, front doors closed, windows shut, and curtains were drawn. And then there was silence and Elizabeth was once again alone, feeling like a visitor in her own back garden, which had taken on a new life in the falling darkness.

Her mind began to rewind over the events of the day. It stopped and played Saoirse's visit. Played it over and over again, the volume rising on every repeat. They all leave eventually, isn't that right, Lizzie? The sentence repeated itself like a broken record. It kept on at her like a finger prodding her chest. Harder and harder, first grazing the skin, then breaking it, prodding and prodding until eventually it tore right through and reached her heart. The place where it hurt most. The breeze blew and stung her open wound.

She shut her eyes tightly. For the second time that day, Elizabeth cried. They all leave eventually, isn't that right, Lizzie?

It played over and over again, waiting for an answer from her. Her mind exploded. YES! it shouted. Yes they all eventually leave. Every single one of them, every single time. Every person that ever succeeded in brightening her day and cheering her heart disappeared as quickly as the cat in the night. As though happiness were only supposed to be some kind of week-end treat, like ice cream. Her mother had done just as this evening's sun had done: had left her, had taken away the light and warmth and replaced it with a chill and dark.

Uncles and aunts who visited to help had moved or passed on. Friendly schoolteachers could only care for a school year, school friends developed and tried to find themselves too. It was always the good people who left, the people who weren't afraid to smile or to love.

Elizabeth hugged her knees and cried and cried, like a little girl who had fallen and cut her knee. She wished for her mother to come and pick her up, to carry her and rest her on the kitchen counter while she applied a plaster to her cut. And then, just as she always did, she would carry her around the room dancing and singing until the pain was forgotten and her tears had dried.

She wished for Mark, her only love, to take her in his arms, in arms so big she was dwarfed in his embrace. She wished to be surrounded by his love while he rocked her slowly and softly as he used to do, whispering hushes of reassurance in her ears and running his fingers through her hair. He made her believe that everything would be OK, and lying in his arms she knew that it would, felt that it would.

And the more she wished, the more she cried because she realized there was no one around who could make her feel this way again. Her father could barely look her in the eye for fear of remembering his wife, and her sister was so incapable of offering comfort that she had forgotten her own son. Meanwhile, her nephew needed comfort from her. He looked to her every day with big, hopeful blue eyes, just asking to be loved and cuddled. Emotions that she felt she was never given enough of to be able to share.

And as Elizabeth sat there crying and rocking, shivering in the breeze, she wondered why it was that she allowed one sentence that had passed the lips of a girl who had never received enough kisses of love, never felt warm embraces, and never herself allowed words of love to drift over her own lips to be the one whose thump and kick sent her falling to the ground. Just as she had done with the piece of black silk in Elizabeth's office.

Damn Saoirse. Damn her and her hatred of life, damn her for her disregard for others and disrespect for her sister. Damn her for not trying when all Elizabeth did was try with her whole heart. What gave her the power to speak with such churlishness, how could she be so flippant with her insults? The voice inside Elizabeth's head reminded her that it wasn't the drink talking, it was never the drink talking. It was the hurt.

Elizabeth's own hurt was screaming at her tonight. "Oh, help," she cried softly, covering her face in her hands. "Help, help, help," she whispered through her sobs.

A noise at the sliding door of the kitchen caused her head to jerk up from where it was cradled in her knees. At the door stood a man, lit like an angel by the kitchen light behind him.

"Oh." Elizabeth swallowed hard, her heart pounding at being caught. She wiped her eyes roughly and smoothed down her wild hair. She rose to her feet. "You must be Sam's dad." Her voice still shook from the emotion bubbling inside her. "I'm Elizabeth."

There was a silence. He was probably wondering what on earth he was thinking, letting his six-year-old son be minded by this woman, a woman who let her six-year-old nephew open the front door by himself at ten o'clock at night.

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear the doorbell ring." She pulled her cardigan tighter around her waist and crossed her arms. She didn't want to step into the light. She didn't want him to see that she had been crying. "I'm sure Luke has told Sam you're here but..." But what, Elizabeth? "But I'll just give him a quick call anyway," she mumbled. She walked across the grass toward the house with her head down, rubbing her forehead with her hand to hide her eyes.

When she reached the kitchen door, she squinted against the bright light, but kept her head lowered, not wanting to make eye contact with the man. All she could see of him were a pair of blue Converse runners at the end of a pair of faded blue jeans.