She couldn’t remember how long she had been standing on this rung. She had hooked her good arm through the iron loop and put her head against the dirty concrete wall to rest. Just for a minute ... and then another ... and another ...

In one tiny corner of her mind she was very afraid, but that little voice wasn’t strong enough to wake her. It tried to shout, but seemed so far away.

I don’t want to die!

Her pulse was shallow and quick. She wondered dimly if that meant not enough blood was getting to her brain.

If she could just lie down and rest. If the pain would stop for just a while ...

If she could just let go ...

Then she did let go, and her body felt weightless, and it seemed to take forever just falling and falling.

NO!!!

“No!”

And BANG! Like that, all the disparate parts of her being slammed back together, and her body jerked as if she had been given an electrical shock. She grabbed tight to the iron rung as her good foot started to slip.

Climb! Marissa’s voice shouted. Damn it, G., climb!

Dry wracking sobs shaking her, Gina forced herself to reach up for the next rung.

Even as she did it, she was thinking, I can’t do it. I can’t make it. I’m so tired. I feel so weak.

You can do it, Gina! You have to. Do it for me. Do it for Haley. One more. Come on. Come on!

One more.

And then one more.

Her head hit the rotten door. She pushed it open.

And then she was lying on the ground, in the mud, the steady cold rain drenching her to the bone.

Chapter 63

63

“I love a school holiday,” Franny said, pouring the coffee. He made himself at home wherever he was, particularly in Anne’s kitchen. “Thanksgiving, Christmas, Sixth Graders Putting Cherry Bombs Down the Toilets Day.”

The resulting plumbing catastrophe had given the children and teachers of Oak Knoll Elementary an unexpected long weekend.

“I’m glad for the company of another adult,” Anne said. “The mind of a four-year-old can be exhausting to keep up with.”

“They haven’t been dumbed down by society yet at that age,” Franny said, doctoring the coffee with cream and cinnamon. “Everything is possible.”

They went into the family room with its big bank of windows looking out on the backyard. The rain was still coming down. Haley and Wendy were busy with dolls at one end of the room. Franny and Anne each took a big stuffed leather chair near the windows.

“Haley asked me if I would be her mommy until her mommy is done being an angel,” Anne said.

“Oh!” Franny’s eyes filled with tears. “That should be in a children’s book!”

“A children’s book about death?”

“They take it better than we do. What did you tell her?”