I thought of Ray, of all the time I had wasted, assuming the worst.

The longer I looked at her, the more my mind wandered. I thought back to that fight, the one we’d had before I left. Her angry, desperate words, the ones I had been afraid of for so long. I could barely recall them now. How long had I been filling in the blank spaces, nursing my anger? Those days were so far behind me now, in another life. The fight felt like a bruise, something that might fade if I just let it be.

“Krystal,” I said. I reached out my hand.

I saw her stiffen before she turned toward me, bracing herself for another one of my smartass jabs. But then she saw my blistered, trembling hand. She looked at me, really looked at me, beyond the burns, beyond our fractured past. I hoped that she saw that I was finished hurting her. Her whole body relaxed and her face sagged. She took my hand.

“Bonnie,” she said, and stopped. Her voice choked up. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

I grunt-snorted. I took her other hand. We sat there for a while in silence. The lowering sun dodged in and out of clouds, the light in the room waxing and waning.

She sniffled and said, “You can come home with me, you know. We would be happy to have you.” She wiped at her face with her hand. “You could have your own room and everything. Whatever you wanted.”

I imagined the life she was suggesting, of going back to the places of my youth, of seeing the people I used to know, the old landscape. I pictured holidays together with Krystal and her new family, Christmases, the new traditions they had formed, the routine of her days, the smiling face of her kid. My own room, my own window. I remembered the smell of Geannie’s house when Krystal and I were younger, remembered how she used to stand in the kitchen, urging us to go outside. Go get some sun on your face, she’d say.

A normal life. I wanted to want it.

The ground inside me broke wide open and I fell into it. All this lost time, all these lost people. I buried my face in her hands and shook.

I was sorry, too.

After Krystal left, I sat at my window for a while until someone came and got me, wheeled me to a late dinner. The autumn season was coming on, and the dining room was adorned in all the trappings—red and gold paper leaves, white fairy lights, fake plastic gourds. Outside the weather has turned cold, the nurses say. I heard them talking about corn mazes, about carving pumpkins. “And did you know the original jack-o’-lanterns were turnips?” one of them said tonight. She was standing behind me, chatting with one of the more talkative patients.

I could almost hear Rita chime in. A light carried in such an ugly vessel? Can you imagine? Her laugh.