WARNING: mention of Domestic Abuse, Rape, Self-injury

Chapter 1

"Oh no!"

"What?" Emily wondered, eying her adopted daughter questioningly.

"I forgot my book!"

"What book?"

"The book we got today and that we're supposed to have read by Wednesday!" she elucidated, already turning back on her heel. "I'll be right back!" she yelled, running up the stairs again.

Emily sighed, leaning onto the old steering wheel. Three years had gone by very fast. Aimee had turned fourteen last month. She herself would be sixty only next year – a birthday and an age she certainly didn't welcome. Aimee and the General would very likely make a fuss about it, too – even though the latter no longer lived with them. Sixty sounded so old all of a sudden, in comparison with fifty-nine, even though the difference wasn't any more than the one between fifty-eight and fifty-nine had been. For instance, being intimate while in your fifties might be frowned upon, while in your sixties that was downright not-done, and if it then was, you certainly didn't talk about it.

She had never been particularly beautiful, even though she may have been not ugly in her days – the days Emily Delahunty had worked in the Café Rose. Who would even consider…?

Emily eyed herself wearily in the rearview mirror while waiting for Aimee's return. Her hair still hadn't darkened much, nor had her voice particularly deepened. The laugh lines had come more to the surface, though. She had laughed more often since Carrozza 219 for sure; more than had been the case in the ten to fifteen years therefore. She eyed this fact with a little smile. Maybe she had never known how and had only learned to laugh and smile after that. Maybe she had known, but had forgotten about it.

"Miss! What are you still doing here?" Aimee exclaimed, surprise audible in her tone of voice, seeing her teacher still sitting at the desk. "What are you still doing here on a Friday after school, when the weather is…" That's when the teacher in question, who had been looking through the window until then, finally averted her gaze and turned her head to eye the younger girl. You didn't need a lot of imagination to know the woman had been crying. You could even still see the tears lying on her cheeks.

"I could be asking you the same," Evelyn Mussolini replied.

"I uhm… I forgot my book," Aimee said, suddenly recalling why she had come back, and moving to her desk to gather the book in question.

"You shouldn't be so forgetful."

"I know," Aimee whispered, pushing the book in her already heavy shoulder bag. She then eyed her teacher curiously. "Why are you crying?" she asked.

"That's not of any importance."

"Oh, it is. There must be a reason why you're still here, showing the evidence of having cried, instead of being at home with your family, being happy."

Aimee knew she must have said something meaningful to her teacher, for the vivid green eyes filled with more tears, and she intuitively turned her gaze down to trace the lines in the aging wood of which her desk was made. "I can't go home," Evelyn whispered; nothing more, nothing less.

"Why?" Aimee questioned, not quite getting it all.

"I'm afraid I cannot tell you that."

Aimee nodded. "You weren't going to stay here tonight, were you?" she asked. The silence of her teacher told her enough. She intuitively bit down on her bottom lip in thought. "If you really, really can't go home, then…"

"I really, really can't," Evelyn whispered, half sad, half with a smile.

"Then isn't there somewhere, or someone, else you could go to? I mean, there must certainly be somewhere you could…"

"Aimee. You're truly very kind, but I cannot afford a lot. Being a teacher doesn't pay as well as you might believe."

Then suddenly a thought struck Aimee. "My mum! I mean, she's not really my mum, but I have been living with her since my eleventh, and she's been there and kind of acted like my mum since. She's got a very large house. I'm sure that there's still room enough for you, until you can go home."

A smile momentarily made its way across the teacher's youthful face, then disappeared once again. "I'm afraid that I'll never be able to go home again…" she whispered, sadness overtaking her voice at that point. She sighed. "The offer is kind enough, but I fear that I cannot possibly…"