Then and Now

The rain had eased, but the gray skies still echoed with the darkness in her heart. She worked her way down the street crowded with parked cars and veered right at the first intersection. When she was eight, that intersection had been the boundary point, her mother reminding her to go not one step past the stop sign there. When she was ten, it had been the meeting spot for sleep-overs at Mandy’s house; the girls would meet at the halfway point and then walk giggling back to the house that was the evening’s destination. At thirteen, it was the marker between before and after. Then her world had been so orderly and full and abundant, but now it was empty and dark and cold.