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me?
    It’s not the Watcher, I told myself. He’s not driving around in a car. Calm down.
    â€œOh, good. There you are.” Dad walked into the kitchen and tossed a pile of mail onto the counter. He saw the plastic deli bag I’d retrieved from the fridge. “Making a sandwich?”
    â€œSort of. But it’s not for me.” I motioned toward Dante, who was still curled up in a quivering ball of rattled nerves. “He got scared by a car,” I explained. There was no reason to tell Dad anything. He had enough to worry about, and if the demented driver was simply an embarrassed fan, I would be causing him unnecessary stress.
    Dad sat in a chair across from Dante while I placed a pile of smoked turkey on a napkin. “So, I’ve decided to go see Mom,” he said. “I’m leaving in an hour. Can you be ready by then?”
    A trip to see Mom took hours. We wouldn’t return until close to midnight. “I start school tomorrow, remember?”
    Dad nodded. “Right. Of course. Your first day of college.”
    He had forgotten. I placed the meat in front of Dante, who sniffed at it, then began to lick it. “I guess I could go. If you think we can be back by dinner.”
    There was no way that would happen, and we both knew it, but I didn’t want Dad to think I was trying to get out of the visit. We were quiet, both of us watching Dante eat as if it were the most interesting event in the world.
    â€œWhen was the last time you saw her?” Dad asked.
    The question felt like a shove to the chest. I knew it wascoming, but I wasn’t prepared. “Couple weeks ago. I went with Annalise.”
    It had been a brief visit, one that my sister had insisted on. While she made a consistent effort to see Mom twice a week, I often found reasons why I couldn’t go. During the first month after she had been hurt, I went to the hospital every day. I spent hours in her room, feeling the rhythm of the machines that kept her alive. Her heart monitor was a drum, softly tapping out a beat. Nurses checked her vitals every hour. They would smile at me before reaching for Mom’s limp wrist. She was so pale, so still. She would look exactly the same if we laid her in a coffin, I thought.
    Days passed, then weeks. The hopeful doctors decided that they’d done all they could and said Mom would be better off in a long-term care facility. Long-term. The suggestion behind the word terrified me. Would she remain in this motionless state for months? Years? Forever? The doctors didn’t know. She had survived the critical first twenty-four hours. Only time would tell, they said. Head trauma took time to heal. But no one could tell us how much time. And after months of minuscule success—her finger twitched once when I held her hand—a part of me gave up.
    How long can a person cling to hope before it becomes too much? I wanted to remember Mom as the laughing, determined person she had been, not the helpless body she had become. Seeing her lying in the crisp white bed, the monitors beeping steadily, reminded me that she was not the person I had always known. It hurt. And I was tired of hurting. I wouldn’t give up on her, but it was easier to hold on to hope when I didn’t have to look at her.
    â€œI know it can be difficult,” Dad said, his voice soft. “But I also know that it matters. Us being there matters. I believe that.”
    Did he? Before the attack, Dad had never trusted anything that wasn’t based purely in science. When had he transformed? I almost wished that he hadn’t. Everyone was changing without me.
    â€œI’ll go next time,” I said. “I promise.”
    â€œI’m going to hold you to that.” Dad crossed the room and kissed my forehead. “See you tomorrow, Charlotte.”
    â€œHave a good trip, Dad.”
    After he left, I flipped through the mail. A thick white envelope had already been opened. I