She felt the bed sink.  

     “Come on sweetie, open your eyes.” Her mother was not fooled. “Come on Meggie.”  

     Megan opened one eye to a slit. Her mother laughed at her.  

     “How come you always know when I’m faking?”  

     “Special Mom powers,” her mother said mysteriously.  She waggled her eyebrows. Megan giggled.  Her mother picked her up and held her close.  

     “Mom, I’m ten years old. I’m not a baby anymore,” insisted Megan half-heartedly, snuggling into her mother’s embrace.  

     “I know Meggie.  But you’re still my baby.”  She sighed.  

     “That’s why it makes me so sad when you fight with Dan.”  

     Megan put her head down on her mother’s shoulder, silent.  

     “I wish you would just try a little harder.  He wants to be part of this family.”  

     “But I don’t like him,” said Megan, staring at the wall.  “I liked it better with just you and me.”  

     “You haven’t even given him a chance!” her mother said, as she pulled Megan back and looked into her eyes.  “Will you try, just for me?”  

     Megan stared back, frowning.  “Okay. But it’s going to be real hard.”  

     “For a little while,” her mother agreed. “But then hopefully you’ll start to like him, at least a little.  He’s a very nice man.  He’ll take good care of us.”  

     Yeah right, thought Megan.  

     “All right,” her mother said, laying her back down.  “Go to sleep.  I love you very much.”  

     “I love you too. Good night.”  

     “Sweet dreams, squirt.”  

     Her mother left the door open a little bit.  

     Megan slid quickly into sleep.  

     She was wearing her Pooh pajamas in her dream.  The soft flannel smelled like strawberries.  She was standing in the middle of a canoe, floating on a sluggish river – the sky was filled with blue light.  She sailed on, clutching her four-leaf clover in one hand.  The canoe sidled onto a small island in the middle of the river, and she stepped off the boat into cottony sand.  Lying in the sand in front of her was a photo album. It had deep red and purple flowers all over it. Colors of human organs – heart red, liver purple. White ruffles edged the book.  She opened it to the first picture.  
 

The girl wears a long white dress; her hair hangs free to fall down her back in a black shield.  She walks barefoot, holding white slippers in one hand.  Dark trees huddle like chaperones on either side of the path. Their branches meet overhead.  Like a photograph superimposed on its own negative, the trees themselves form one picture and the light between them forms its twin.  A tunnel with a black wooden colonnade and a roof of gray leaves. Or shadow-trees of pure sunlight, with bright trunks and a leaf-splintered ceiling of light. Tombstones hide beyond the trees, peeping out between them like shy boys standing with their fathers. 

     “Mom?” she slurred, eyes struggling open.  Silence responded.  She yawned once and turned over.  

     Dan stared at her as she snuggled back into sleep, one finger caressing the camera around his neck.  
 

The little girl sprawled on the bed, Winnie-the-Pooh peeking out from her collar over the sheet.  One wrist bent backwards under her chin, stretching her neck so that shadows muffled her face.  Red-gold hair shined in tangled splendor, sponging up the light that spilled in from an unseen, open doorway.