Laura Levenberg stood near the curb, staring down into a puddle that rippled with light rain and was cast in the harsh glow of a street lamp.  Though her reflection kept changing, she went on trying to find herself in the pool of expanding and colliding ringlets of water, to try to find that pretty, 21-year-old woman she should be.

But that woman wasn't there, just a blurry image that suddenly felt appropriate.  She mused that her reflection might be distinct if only none of it had happened...

Running a thumb under her duffle bag's strap, she adjusted its position on her shoulder.  She tightened her grip on the mixed bouquet, then started for the dark, fenced-off house.  Only three people remembered a time when the home was idyllic, a place of warmth where spirits soared and dreams were fostered.  As she moved toward the gate, she noted, as she usually did, the faded sign posted there:

She shuddered.

Following a crack in the driveway that ran up to the front walkway.  Lavenberg turned and stepped to the front door.  Then, as lightning flashed, revealing just how overgrown with weeds the place was, she looked to the second floor.  The windows had been boarded up, and then those boards had been ripped off so that the Arab street urchins could take shots at the house and chuckle over the sound of breaking glass.  In a way, she was glad the boards were gone, their absence made the house look slightly more lived-in, though it would still need a total renovation.  She averted her gaze and stepped onto the stoop.

The last time she'd been here, the door had been smashed in; now it was inside of the house, clinging to a single hinge.  Leaves, twigs, and other debris littered the foyer's concrete floor.  The carpeting had been ripped out of the house long ago, and the walls had sustained wounds from any number of weapons.  At the foot of the stairs, beer cans and plastic six-pack holders lay strewn amid a sea of candy wrappers.  On one of the walls adjacent to the staircase, someone had spray-painted the words: ATOMIZE THIS EYESORE!  Laura kicked her way through the garbage and mounted the stairs.  Lightning flashed again, and she welcomed the fact that its light illuminated her path.  The wooden stairs were warped and creaked from disuse.  She reached the 2nd-floor landing, feeling her chest start to pound.  She froze, listened to the sound of the rain outside, then shushed herself.  She drew in long, slow breaths.

It was right behind her, but she didn't want to look at it.  Not just yet.  She needed control.  She swallowed, realizing her mouth was dry as a desert, then moved her tongue nervously over her teeth.  Another breath.  Sush.  Another breath.

She turned towards the bedroom door.  Then she shut her eyes and strode forward, sensing when she reached the threshold.  She opened her eyes and...

Laura blinked hard.  No, her father wasn't at the window.  There wasn't much left of the window, and the lace curtain lay dirty and torn beneath it.  She shot a look to the room's corner.....

She lost her balance and had to lean against the closet door for support.  She forced herself to look up into the closet door for support.  She forced herself to look up into the closet at the little hatch set into the ceiling.  She shed her duffel bag and set the bouquet on top of it.  She swung her foot onto the knob of the closet door and gripped the metal grillwork of the shelf.  With a grimace and a groan, Laura drove herself up, quickly shoved open the hatch, got a hold of the frame, and then pulled herself into the crawlspace.

Sitting with her feet still dangling down into the closet, and hunched over a bit to avoid hitting her head on the rafters rising at a 45-degree angle away from her, Laura tried to repress a chill as she surveyed the nearest floor beams visible in the gloom.  They, like the backside of the ceiling panels, were covered with a thick coating of dust and spanned by cobwebs.  She found a particular floor beam and ran her fingers across it.  Feeling what she was looking for, she stopped.

Of course, they were still there.  She removed her hand and squinted at the wood...

The crawlspace was dark and silent again.  But then thunder clapped and a strong burst of wind swept over the house.  Laura looked down, not realizing until she did so that she'd been gripping the floor beam the way she and her sisters had that night.

She sat for a long while, her breath turning calm but her memories still locked into a sick loop that ran from the time she was five until the present.

That night, the road of her life had made a sudden turn.  A pair of shots had changed her from a little girl with loving parents into an orphan.  She had fought with the bastards who had wanted to separate her from her sisters.  At least Uncle Avi had stepped in---though forced---and had obtained custody of them.  But Avi had been barely able to be an uncle, let alone both a mom and dad.  So, Laura, over the years, had assumed the role of both sister and mother to Miri and Tam.  She hadn't wanted the role.  She had just wanted to be a kid.  Now, she wasn't going to get Miri away from the clubbing lifestyle or get Tam back into school.  And every time Laura tried to discipline them, they would laugh at her, or blame her for their screwed-up lives.  Well, she wasn't going to let them blame her anymore!

"I've been asking you why for 16 years," she said softly, her voice sounding hollow and alien to her.  "Just tell me there was a reason.  Tell me what they died for.  And tell me why I did nothing to stop it.

Sometimes she imagined a reply.  This time she didn't.

She climbed down from the crawlspace, picked up her bouquet, and placed it on the floor where her parents had been slain.  With no one to hold her, she wrapped her arms around herself and stood there squeezing out tears.  It might have been a minute, an hour, a lifetime; she didn't know, but at last, she finally lifted her head and opened her eyes.

She crunched across broken glass to the windows.  The rain had stopped. She listened to the residual drops trickle through the leaves and limbs of a great palm in the yard.  

A new sound cut into the night, the voice of distant fighter jet thrusters echoing in the sky.  

The jet called to her.

Laura probed the heavens, feeling the wind start to dry the tears on her cheeks.  As the sound died away, she turned from the window and fetched her duffel bag.

Outside the house, she considered delaying, to take one final look at the place, but instead, she stared into the sky.  The storm clouds were breaking, and the light from the crescent moon bled through them.  Near the moon, a bright blue star glimmered.

"You're not that far away," she whispered.​​​​​​​