"Say when," Meredith, Aunt Miriam said, holding the pitcher over Meredith's glass. Meredith watched the clear glass become steadily whiter until Aunt Miriam jerked the pitcher up. "Meredith! You didn't say when!"

Meredith shrugged, curling her toes over the edge of the chair, wrapping her arms around her knees. She felt uncomfortable in the skirt Aunt Miriam had brought her to wear, but she did not have a choice, since Mommy hadn't unpacked any of their boxes.

"Why are you in Boston?" she asked Aunt Miriam. She watched the woman's face, and knew that what she said would not be true. Her eyes were sad, in that way that lots of adults had when they looked at Meredith.

"Your mommy asked me to help you move."

"We moved days and days ago," Meredith pointed out. "We're all moved. I'm starting school next week."

"Well, maybe I wanted to spend more time with you." Meredith knew that this was definitely a lie. No one wanted to spend time with her. Daddy left. Uncle Richard left. Mommy never wanted to see her.

"Eat your pancakes," Aunt Miriam said. Even her smile was sad. When she was five, Meredith did not know that a smile could be sad.

"Can I go see Mommy? She likes blueberry pancakes."

"Yes, I know that sweetheart, but I don't think that's a good idea."

Meredith threw out her arm and knocked over the nearly-full milk glass, so that it spilled all over her aunt's t-shirt and jeans. Before Aunt Miriam could yell, and Meredith was used to yelling so she did not care, she ran up the stairs. She managed to ne quiet when she reached her mother's room.

She hesitated outside the door. Mommy's room did 't smell like flowers here the way it smelled in Seattle. It smelled stale because Mommy never left the room. Meredith knocked quietly as she pushed the door open.

Mommy sat on her bed, staring at the door. She saw Meredith, she had to say Meredith, but she did not say anything.

"Mommy?" Meredith said tentatively. "Mommy? Aunt Miriam made blueberry—"

"Go away," Her mother said, quietly.

Meredith stayed at the door. "Mommy, they're really good. Please?"

"Go!" Her mother yelled loudly. Then she started crying. It was loud crying, the kind that made Mommy's face scrunch up and made Meredith feel like her heart was stopping. She hated Mommy crying more than Mommy yelling.

She stood paralyzed in the door, wanting to go to her mommy and make it better, but afraid that she'd make her more upset. That happened too much.

"Come on, Meredith," Aunt Miriam's hand was securely on her shoulder and she pushed her behind her out the door. Meredith broke away from her and ran down the stairs and out the door. She ran all the way to the playground at the end of the block and got on the swings, hoping that if she swung high enough she would disappear like all the grown ups seemed to want her to. Then maybe Mommy would not cry anymore.

XXX

That night, Meredith lay in her bed with the teddy bear that Daddy gave her tucked next to her, because Aunt Miriam had put it there. Meredith did not know how she really felt about that bear anymore, but she had loved it when Daddy used to make it talk, so she kept it, just in case she could maybe love it again soon.

She could hear Aunt Miriam in Mommy's room, talking in the low voice that grown-ups used with her whenever she hurt herself. Meredith rolled over and stared at the ceiling. "Hush little Meredith don't say a word," she whispered to the ceiling. It was what Mommy used to sing late at night when the storms in Seattle scared her. Now Meredith thought it was true. Mommy, and Daddy, and even Aunt Miriam who had sent her to her room when she brought her back from the park, wanted her to not say a word.

Meredith didn't realize at first that her hand was winding in the fur of the bear until she realized that she did not know who would buy her a mockingbird. "Bear's gonna buy you a mockingbird," she decided.

Maybe she fell asleep, maybe she did not, but the next thing she knew was thunder. Loud thunder. She wanted Mommy. She had not had Mommy or Daddy in a long time, and it was storming and she wanted Mommy.

She got out of bed, the bear in her hand. She knew, as her too-long nightgown brushed the floor by the guest room door that she should go to her aunt, but she did not want her. She did not sound or smell like Mommy.

"Mommy?" Meredith said softly, knocking on the door, and then opening it. There was no one in the bed, she realized, as she climbed up in it. Maybe Mommy was in the bathroom. She would get into the bed and wait for her. Maybe if she were asleep, not saying a word, Mommy would love her again and let her stay.

When she woke up there was light over her eyes and someone was screaming. Meredith did not remember getting out of the bed, but the next thing she knew, she was standing in the bathroom doorway. Aunt Miriam stood over the bathtub, the phone in her hands. The bathtub was full, but the water was red. Meredith was confused. Had Mommy put food coloring in the water?

Then she looked at Mommy's face. Her eyes were shut. Her face looked pale, her mouth was open and Meredith saw tearstains on her face.

"Mommy?" Meredith whispered. Aunt Miriam realized she was there and quickly pushed into the hall. She stood against the door, watching in the mirror as Aunt Miriam's face crumpled up the way Mommy's did when she was crying. "Oh Ellis," her aunt whimpered. Meredith did not understand; if Mommy had an accident, why was Aunt Miriam crying?

Then there were sirens and men with a bed on wheels in the hall. They took Mommy away, and Meredith was sent to the neighbors, still in her nightgown. They clucked over her and gave her the sad eyes and smile. When one of the old ladies, the one with the hook nose, leaned over to give her a piece of cake, she called over to the other old lady who was sitting at the table, "Poor duck. Her mother tries to kill herself and she doesn't think twice about leaving the child."

Meredith did not understand at first. Mommy had had an accident. She was going to be fine. She was not going to die. But then Meredith thought about Mommy's face, then about the bunny that had died. That was when Daddy had told her what dying was. Maybe all the blood meant that Mommy was dying. Meredith stood up and tried to run for the door. The old woman grabbed her arm, with a clawlike grip that must be what the witches had, in the stories Daddy used to read. Meredith reached up and punched the woman in the face. She let go and Meredith ran, back to the park even though it was raining. She huddled under the jungle gym and hoped maybe that it would fall over or she would get cold and die and then Mommy would not have to. Maybe Mommy could be happy then.

XXX

Aunt Miriam stayed with her for weeks and weeks. Meredith started school and Aunt Miriam kept having to come in and talk to the teacher because Meredith did not do her work. Finally, Meredith was allowed to go see Mommy. Her mother did not talk, but she was alive. Meredith had not really believed Aunt Miriam when she said that Mommy was okay, but now she was. Mommy liked it when she did good at school, and so she started doing her homework.

. At night Meredith heard her on the phone. She did not know who she was talking to, until one night she crept to the door for long enough to hear the words: "She's your daughter Thatcher! Probably more so than she is Ellis's!" Meredith scowled and threw her bear, which she had been holding, against the wall. A few minutes later, she went back and picked him up. When she got back into bed and put her hands under her chin she felt tears on her cheeks, when she had not even known she was crying.

The leaves were changing when Mommy came home. She seemed to be better. Now she came out of her room, she sat on the couch most of the day. She let Meredith sit on the couch near her if Meredith did not speak, so Meredith was very quiet. One night, close to Halloween, Mommy had a fight with Aunt Miriam, and Aunt Miriam left. Meredith did not know how she felt about that.

The next morning Mommy smiled and said, "Well, Meredith it's just you and me now." There was something scary in her smile; it did not reach her eyes. Meredith just nodded and took a sip of her orange juice. She definitely was not about to ask Mommy about Halloween costumes. Instead she left as soon as she could to wait outside for the bus.

After a while, Meredith stopped sitting outside the door when Mommy went to the bathroom. She played outside quietly, went to school and got good grades. They made Mommy smile and she let Meredith sit in her lap some times after she'd brought home a really good report card. Sometimes her mommy's tears fell into her hair. Meredith wanted to ask her if she were okay, but she never did.

As she got older, Meredith stopped thinking so much about what happened. Her mother was such a force, a loud one, who yelled and disapproved, that she barely remembered the woman who did not leave her room. After a while, she forgot when her mother had been Mommy and she loved her, as she got told over and over again that she would never be good enough. Every once in a while there was a spark, a sign, of what her mother used to be, of why she used to love her. However, soon after one of these there would be something else that happened and there would be yelling. Mostly her mother would do the yelling and Meredith would sit there and let the words wash over her, until she drowned in them.

She made her mother's prophecy true. She did not get perfect grades anymore. It did not matter, she got yelled at either way, so why put out the extra effort to do better? She dyed her hair pink the day after her mother sneered at a girl with pink hair at a shopping mall. After college, she moved out with friends and spent her days partying. If she ever told her mother what she really wanted to do, she would be laughed at. Girls who are a waste of space don't go to med-school. Also, there was the chance that her mother would agree, and she would be sent to medical school and that might be even scarier.

She left for Europe in a sweep of swears and shouting. She said horrible things, and so did her mother, and Meredith drank it all away on the plane. By the time she landed in Amsterdam, she had stopped thinking about her mother, she had stopped thinking all together. Sometimes, though, lying in hostel beds late at night, she wondered if this was really the life she wanted.

Two months later she was on a plane again, and all that ran through her head were the good times with her mother. To her surprise she realized that she had fond memories of times with her mother. In fact, when she thought about them, they stood out. They were few and far between as she got older, but there were times.

She leaned her head against the cold, hard glass of the window of the plane and saw a flash of lightening, and she found her thoughts playing the old lullaby in her head. She remembered singing it to herself whenever her mother would come home late from the hospital. Some times, even when she was older, her mother would come in and hear her. She would smooth Meredith's hair down and leave without a word. Meredith wondered if she even remembered that she used to sing it.

"My grandmother used to sing that song to me," the man sitting next to her said, barely looking up over his paperback.

Meredith started, pushing her hair out of her eyes. "It's my lullaby," she said simply. The plane began to descended and as it did Meredith decided, it was time to change her life. Maybe it would make her mother happy, in the way she had always hoped it would. Maybe it would not. Maybe, it would make her happy.

"Maybe I gotta buy myself a diamond ring," she murmured as she went down the plane steps and into the night. Maybe it was nearly time to stop running away.

A/N: I literally turned off the TV and said: " I have to write that". It's loosely based off of the Maria Mena son "My lullaby"

Mom please hurry home to me

I waited up so patiently

You sit down and you start to cry

But you never ask me why

Why I sing my lullaby