These Dreams of You

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She’s nobody’s daughter for a while. She doesn’t talk to any of the family. She doesn’t defy Viv and Zan or argue with Parker; the nights after the coroner comes and takes Molly away, the girl lies on the floor by Molly’s bed with her back to everyone. All her demands to be part of the family have gone silent; she makes no music. She can’t quite precisely be called inconsolable because she’s so deep in herself that she gives no evidence of anything to be consoled. Neither Viv nor Zan can get her to come to bed with them; crumpled half asleep on the floor next to where Molly died, she is not moved by any coaxing. I’m a professional, she murmurs. She sleeps there until the father picks her up and carries her to the other bed, but when they wake in the morning she’s back in her place on the floor and doesn’t give it up until the night before they’re to fly back to Los Angeles, when Parker calls to her softly, “Hey, buttmunch, come here,” and only then she picks herself up and scrambles under the blankets beside her brother.