Edward remembers the first time she was left alone.

There was lots of light everywhere, and little windows.

Edward remembers four pairs of hands. One pair was brown and giant, like the little old copper funny looking money pieces people used to use. I was sitting on a soft thing with flower pictures on it. I think the big pair of hands tried to grab me around the waist, but they didn't pick me up very well. Edward's bones felt squished inside and like she was rolling on her belly on the edge of a cliff. But really, she was only resting on a big shoulder. That big shoulder, he laughed. And then Edward saw little pale hands with more little copper colors on them. There were dots all over everything on her hands. And she was so white underneath the dots she was almost see-through.

She was smiling, but a small smile. She was flying when she picked Edward up off the giant shoulder-cliff. The thin strands growing out of her head were orange, orange, red. Sometimes even her whole face got red like a tomato. Edward once tried to bite the face, but the face didn't like that very much.

The face sighed. The cliff chuckled and was gone. So, then it was only Mother-person and Edward.

Mother-person used to tell stories about her own Mother-person being far, far underground. I only remember because of the pale hands moving when she spoke. Her hands made ladders and stairways and small lights with elevators around them. The stories were told to me about Grandmother-person taking her on pointless adventures through stairways and ceilings. Grandmother-person was crazier than anybody. Mama said it was something about reliving her past. Well, she maybe never really said it.

Yet I could tell she meant it.

I know it's true because old people-people are funny that way.

One day after Mama told me a story, Papa walked back into our walls looking like a scrunched-up-face. Like an old-shoe-face. There was nothing but dark coming in through the windows and I was shaking like the vines on the steps. He pulled my Mother-person outside. Her white wrist looked crunched in his big hand, but it was the good kind of crunched, the kind that says "I want to be like houses for you." I noticed how Mama looked so gray standing next to Papa. It seemed like there wasn't much time left for her to be here. So Papa took us somewhere far away. I was given to the people who live on a hill.

I never saw my parents again.

After a while, Edward didn't mind being alone. At first, the dark seemed to move closer to where she was. The air was cold and Edward shook and there were no familiar hands to be found. But there was one light left on, a little orange light; it glowed on and off, on and off. The machine was sleeping, and when Edward woke up, she knew the machine was good.

Tomato.